Developing nations resist Australian climate change move

AUSTRALIA: Developing nations led by China and Southeast Asian states are resisting efforts by the United States and Australia to forge a new framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, diplomats said Wednesday.

Sharp disagreements over a statement on climate change to be issued at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here have highlighted the divisions, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has put climate change high on the summit's agenda, proposing a new approach that would veer away from the Kyoto Protocol, the main international treaty on climate change.

The Kyoto accord expires in 2012 and the APEC summit is one of a series of meetings at which plans for a post-Kyoto agreement on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions behind global warming are being discussed.

Australia and the United States have rejected Kyoto on the grounds that it did not commit developing countries - like China and India - to the same sort of emissions cuts as industrialised nations.

Howard has proposed a "new template" after 2012 calling on developing nations do more to cut their own emissions.

This has met with robust opposition from developing states, who accuse Australia of undermining the Kyoto accord and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). An Indonesian diplomat said Australia should allow the UNFCC to take the lead in planning strategies for the post-Kyoto world. The UNFCC is holding its meeting in Bali in December.

"We don't want any duplication of the UN framework. There should be no action plans in the (leaders') statement" at the APEC summit, the diplomat said.

A senior foreign ministry official said he and his colleages from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held a meeting on Monday to coordinate their positions on the climate change statement.

"We're saying that for the purpose of the leaders' statement, you don't have to include the action agenda," the official said.

"It should be a short statement and straightforward. They should not put in too many details."

The ASEAN officials also insisted that the UNFCC should remain as the main framework for any post-Kyoto plan.

"China supports the ASEAN bloc," he said.

China, one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, has said it should not be expected to take drastic action because it needs to focus on lifting more Chinese out of poverty through economic growth.

But Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer urged developing nations to accept that they have to do more to cut gas emissions while addressing poverty.

"We should try to take a more inclusive view of addressing the issue of greenhouse gas emissions," he told a news conference.

Sydney, Wednesday, AFP