Sydney - Australia is satisfied with the outcome of
intensive negotiations over a regional statement on climate change,
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Saturday.
He said Australia hoped the statement would be approved at a
meeting later Saturday in Sydney of the 21 world leaders, including
US President George W Bush, China's Hu Jintao and Russia's
Vladimir Putin, attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) leaders' summit.
Senior officials have finished negotiations over the draft
'Sydney Declaration,' which the leaders are to examine.
The statement reportedly says that aspirational targets for
cutting greenhouse gas emissions are critical to a post-Kyoto
framework on climate change, which will be negotiated at a United
Nations meeting in Bali, Indonesia in December.
Downer said Australia was happy with the way the climate change
discussions had progressed.
'We've put a lot of emphasis on climate change being a centrepiece
of this meeting and that has been embraced by all of the delegations
that I've dealt with here,' he told reporters.
But he would not confirm whether the key elements of the agreement
would consist of non-binding targets.
'I think this meeting is going to be important if the draft Sydney
Declaration survives through the leaders' meeting,' he said. 'I think
this has the potential to be an important step forward in terms of
Asia Pacific, and in the end, of global consideration of the issue of
climate change.'
'There obviously had to be some difficult negotiations because
this question of climate change is wreathed with nuance and
complexity,' said Downer.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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