Australia Urges Voluntary Emission Goals
By MERAIAH FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard gestures during a pre-APEC 2007 press conference in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2007. Sydney will play host to the 15th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting with leaders from such nations as the USA, Russia, Japan and China attending for the week long event.(AP Photo/Rob Griffith)(AP) -- Australia's leader urged his Pacific Rim counterparts on Sunday to forge a new agreement on climate change - one that would reject binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions in favor of voluntary goals.
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Prime Minister John Howard said a new international agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol must appeal to all nations - including developing countries such as China and India, who are currently not bound by the U.N.-backed pact's reduction targets.


Australia and the United States are the only two industrialized countries not to ratify Kyoto, arguing that binding emission targets could harm economic growth and leave them at a competitive disadvantage to developing countries not held to the pact's targets. "We need a new flexible framework that includes a long-term global goal and encourages a wide range of national actions by all," Howard said at a news conference. Howard has made climate change a special topic for discussion among leaders of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, who will hold their annual summit here on Sept. 8-9. "What I would like to see the APEC meeting in Sydney do is develop a consensus on the post-Kyoto international framework that attracts participation by all emitters," he said. Leaders including President Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin, are expected to sign off on a statement on climate change during their summit. But Howard said it was "very unlikely" the leaders would agree on emission targets.
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Officials from the 21 economies opened the weeklong forum on Sunday, and by day's end had wrapped up their deliberations on a final communique that will likely call for progress on global trade talks and mark progress on a Pacific-wide free trade area proposal. Trade and foreign ministers will conduct further negotiations later this week, before the leaders take up the issues at their summit, a two-day round of talks and hobnobbing at the landmark Sydney Opera House. Police ramped up security for the meetings, erecting a 3-mile-long, 10-foot-tall security fence. Protesters representing a grab-bag of issues from globalization to the Iraq war hope to draw thousands of people into the streets during APEC week. Police on Sunday arrested 11 Greenpeace activists for painting anti-APEC slogans on a coal ship in Newcastle, 100 miles north of Sydney. The emphasis on global warming is the latest example of how APEC's agenda has broadened from its original focus of trade and investment to include matters such as terrorism and health issues. While the APEC region includes the world's three biggest greenhouse gas emitters - China, the United States and Russia - it does not include other key players, such as India or Europe. Critics say that an APEC declaration on climate change that does not include emissions targets is an empty strategy, and that Howard is raising the issue at APEC to strengthen his environmental credentials ahead of elections expected later this year. But other observers say a consensus agreement reached by APEC economies - which include the U.S., China and Russia - could help shape negotiations at a U.N.-backed meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December on a successor to Kyoto, which expires in 2012. A draft APEC statement on climate change urges members to voluntarily make "measurable and verifiable contributions to meeting shared global goals," according to a copy obtained by Greenpeace and seen by The Associated Press. Howard said a post-Kyoto agreement needed flexibility. "You cannot expect a country like China to accept precisely the same constraints or discipline as a country like Germany or the United Kingdom," he said. "Their economies are at vastly different stages of development, and that has always been the fundamental weakness of the Kyoto approach." He also pledged $57.7 million to global climate change efforts, including $12.8 million to a forestry management program backed by China. © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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