Sydney - Asia-Pacific leaders meeting at the Sydney Opera
House on Saturday were expected to endorse a declaration committing
them to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
But the 21 leaders gathered for the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit in Australia's biggest city have baulked at
setting targets and may even delay promising any action on global
warming until the Kyoto Protocol has run its course in 2012.
US President George W Bush, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Russian President Vladimir Putin and 17
other leaders are expected to agree that a 'long-term aspiration
global emissions-reduction goal' will be part of the post-Kyoto fix
for slowing global warming.
The UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol was thrashed out in Japan in 1997
and commits 35 industrialized countries to legally binding emissions-
reductions targets. Developing countries were to join at a later
date.
Bush and APEC host Australian Prime Minister John Howard opposed
the binding targets and refused to ratify the protocol. They argued
that meeting ambitious targets would hurt their economies and that it
was wrong for only rich countries to bear the cost of addressing
climate change.
The US is the single biggest polluter and Australia, the world's
biggest coal exporter, leads the emissions rankings on a per capita
basis because of its almost exclusive reliance on coal for power
generation.
Environmental campaigner Abigail Jabines from international lobby
group Greenpeace accused Bush and Howard of trying to wriggle out of
their climate obligations by aspiring to nothing more than
'aspirational goals' that are neither fixed nor legally binding.
'If John Howard and George Bush are sincere in addressing climate
change, they should ratify Kyoto Protocol and embrace real solutions
such as renewable energy and energy efficiency and set legally
binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,' she said. 'To
John Howard and George Bush - don't run away from Kyoto Protocol,
just do it.'
Howard was hoping that having negotiated a Sydney Declaration
enshrining a 'new flexible framework that includes a long-term global
goal and encourages a wide range of natural actions by all, with
ongoing review processes' would be a vote-winner at a general
election in a few weeks.
He trails badly in the polls and looks set to lose to popular
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, who has pledged to sign Kyoto once in
office.
China and other developing countries refused to go along with any
draft that came close to setting targets. Hu said the Sydney
Declaration needed to give 'full expression' to the primacy of the
UN's role and acknowledge 'differentiated responsibilities.'
China is insistent on negotiating climate measures under the UN
rubric because it accords the bulk of work to developed countries
which, in the view of Bush and Howard, gives key polluters like China
and India a free ride.
As the leaders braved showers to make their way through
unprecedented security to the world-famous Opera House on Sydney's
harbour foreshore, protesters gathered to harangue them under the
stewardship of 3,500 police and 1,500 troops.
'Police will not tolerate unlawful, illegal or dangerous behaviour
and we will take swift action,' a police statement said. 'We cannot
make it any clearer.'
An estimated 4,000 protesters took to deserted rain-swept streets,
most opposing the visit of Bush and the war in Iraq.
So far this week demonstrators have been outnumbered by police and
there have only been a dozen arrests.
To clear the streets, a public holiday was declared, train
stations closed and a 5-kilometre steel fence erected to block off
APEC venues.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story