Australia says ASEAN nations keen on climate pact
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Southeast Asian countries have
expressed interest in joining a new U.S.-led partnership to cut
greenhouse gas emissions by developing technology and economic
incentives, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and
Climate between Australia, the United States, China, Japan,
South Korea and India was unveiled at an Association of South
East Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum in Laos last week.
“The ASEAN governments were asking me whether it would be
possible for them to join this partnership in time,” Downer
said on Australian television on Sunday.
“And I made it clear that once we’ve worked out how we want
it all to come together, we, in principle, would be very happy
to see ASEAN countries become involved because their economies
are growing and they’re significant emitters as well,” he said.
Unlike the Kyoto climate agreement, which requires cuts in
greenhouse emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by
2008-12, the Asia-Pacific partnership has no time frames or
targets.
“We hope that we’ll start to get results under our
partnership fairly quickly,” Downer said.
“That’s going to require collaborative research. It’s also
going to mean we’ll have to investigate price signals coming
from energy.”
Downer said the work would probably be paid for jointly by
governments and the private sector.
The six founding partners of the new pact account for 45
percent of the world’s population, 48 percent of the world’s
greenhouse gas emissions and 48 percent of the world’s energy
consumption.
The United States and Australia are the only developed
nations outside Kyoto. Both say Kyoto, agreed to in 1997, is
flawed because it omits developing states.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) has said world temperatures are likely to rise
between 1.4 and 5.8 degree Celsius (2.5-10.4 degree Fahrenheit)
by 2100, linked to the build-up of greenhouse gases from human
activities.