U.S. in ‘Beyond Kyoto’ pact with Asian nations

By Darren Schuettler

VIENTIANE (Reuters) – Six nations led by the United States
and Australia unveiled a pact on Thursday to fight global
warming, but critics assailed the voluntary deal for offering
no emissions targets and said it undermined existing treaties.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and
Climate — grouping major polluters United States and China
with India, Japan, South Korea and Australia — seeks new
technology to cut greenhouse gases without sacrificing economic
development.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick insisted it
was not a threat to the Kyoto Protocol that Washington and
Canberra have refused to ratify because they say it omits
developing nations and may threaten jobs at home.

“We are not detracting from Kyoto in any way at all. We are
complementing it,” Zoellick told reporters on the sidelines of
an Asia-Pacific security forum in the Lao capital, Vientiane.

“Our goal is to complement other treaties with practical
solutions to problems,” he said.

The six, which account for nearly half the world’s
greenhouse emissions, said the pact would “seek to address
energy, climate change and air pollution issues within a
paradigm of economic development.”

Australian Prime Minister John Howard called it a “historic
agreement” that was “superior to the Kyoto Protocol.”

But environmentalists said the deal was a limited trade and
technology accord and no challenger to the U.N. treaty, which
came into force in February.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with reducing emissions.
There are no targets, no cuts, no monitoring of emissions,
nothing binding,” said Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace.

“It doesn’t address the wider question that two of the
richest countries in the world are doing nothing to reduce
emissions.”

The United States and Australia are the only developed
nations outside Kyoto, which demands cuts in greenhouse
emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

China and India have ratified Kyoto, but as developing
nations they do not have to meet its obligations in the
protocol’s first phase that ends in 2012. Both fear
environmental curbs would restrict their surging economies.

China’s ambassador to Laos, Liu Yongxing, called the new
pact a “win-win solution” for developing and developed nations.

The world is consuming more energy and producing more
greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide from
burning fossil fuels such as coal in power plants and petrol in
cars. Other gases, such as methane from agriculture, are also
adding to global warming, many scientists say.

“KNOCK KYOTO ON THE HEAD”

Some environmentalists accused Washington of seeking to
distract U.N. talks in November in Montreal, which will focus
on how to widen Kyoto to include developing nations after 2012.

Sawyer said the pact might be “a benign technology
agreement,” but “on the other hand, this could be the first
foray by the Americans and Australians to knock Kyoto on the
head.”

Others were also suspicious.

“The main beneficiaries will be Australian coal companies,
some of the world’s biggest greenhouse polluters. It’s a
Machiavellian pact,” said Clive Hamilton, director of The
Australia Institute research center.

Japan, which said the pact would not affect its Kyoto
commitments, saw a chance to develop clean energy in the
region.

But Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew, whose
government is a strong proponent of Kyoto, said the partnership
was thin on details.

“This is progress, but I’m still waiting for the meat. I
hope very much that there will be meat,” he told reporters.

Ministers from the six nations will attend an inaugural
meeting in November in the southern Australian city of
Adelaide.

Phil Goff, New Zealand’s foreign minister, defended Kyoto
but agreed new technology was needed to solve age-old
environmental challenges.

“How to deal with the problem of flatulent cows and sheep?
That is a tougher problem because the science has to be found
to enable us to do that,” he told reporters.

Methane from livestock is the biggest source of greenhouse
gases in New Zealand, where almost half comes from agriculture.
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in CANBERRA, Ben
Blanchard in VIENTIANE and Alister Doyle in OSLO)