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'Beyond Kyoto' greenhouse pact to be announced-U.S.

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 05:35 CDT

By Michelle Nichols

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The United States, Australia, China, India and South Korea will unveil on Thursday a regional pact to combat greenhouse gas emissions by developing environmentally friendly energy technology.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick will make an announcement with representatives from the other four countries at the Association of South East Asian Nations Regional Forum in Laos, a U.S. embassy statement said on Wednesday.

A U.S. official told Reuters the announcement would be about the environment. An Australian government official said earlier on Wednesday that the pact would be unveiled this week.

Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said on Wednesday that the countries had been working on a pact to tackle climate change beyond the Kyoto protocol, which requires a cut in greenhouse emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

The United States and Australia have refused to sign the Kyoto pact, which came into force in February, saying it unfairly excludes developing nations such as India and China. South Korea has ratified Kyoto.

"It's quite clear the Kyoto protocol won't get the world to where it wants to go ... We have got to find something that works better -- Australia is working on that with partners around the world," Campbell told reporters on Wednesday.

The Australian newspaper reported on Wednesday that the pact was to be called the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate.

"We need to expand the energy the world consumes and reduce the emissions. That's going to need new technologies, it's going to need the development of new technologies and the deployment of them within developing countries," Campbell said.

PROTEST

The Australian newspaper said the nations in the Asia-Pacific pact accounted for more than 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels like coal in power plants and petrol in cars.

Scientists say emissions need to be cut by 50 percent to try and limit the impact of global warming.

"This is all about taxpayers' money being diverted from developing clean renewable technologies to try and make burning coal less dirty," Bob Brown, leader of the minority Australian Greens party, said in a statement.

Australia and China are the world's largest coal exporters, while the United States is also a top exporter.

Greenpeace protesters forced the closure of the world's largest coal export port near Sydney for several hours on Wednesday.

"If it's an agreement about appropriate technology transfer. It could be a useful tool, but not at the expense of the only international agreement to deal with climate change," said Greenpeace Energy Campaigner Catherine Fitpatrick.

Japan, the world's number two economy, appeared to welcome the pact.

"From what we have heard, this partnership will not replace the Kyoto Protocol but will complement it," said an official at the Foreign Ministry's climate change division, adding that Japan had already received calls for cooperation and was considering the possibility.

A panel of scientists that advises the United Nations has said world temperatures are likely to rise between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100, triggering more frequent floods, droughts, melting of icecaps and glaciers and driving thousands of species to extinction.

Scientists say the planet's average surface temperature has increased by about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the past century and that the warmest decade of the past 100 years was the 1990s.

Researchers say further warming is inevitable because of the huge amount of extra carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by man's activities but the degree of future warming hinges on how nations control their greenhouse gas emissions now. (Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in VIENTIANE and Masayuki Kitano in TOKYO)

Source: REUTERS

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