Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP-6) concluded their inaugural two-day meeting in Sydney earlier today.
Ministers from the Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the USA, as well as over 100 executives from big businesses were gathered to discuss new tactics to flight climate change. However they said they would neither sacrifice economic growth nor reduce their use of fossil fuels.
"We recognised that fossil fuels underpin our economies, and will be an enduring reality for our lifetimes and beyond," the six nations, who together generate about half of the world's greenhouse gasses, said in a statement.
Critics have said the conference was designed purely to divert attention from the US and Australia's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Some have said it is nothing more than a trade pact. The Ministers from China and India seemed to corroborate that assertion when they said that technology transfer would be the most important element of the agreement.
So what ARE they doing? They said they want to "...work together to develop, demonstrate and implement cleaner and lower emissions technologies that allow for the continued economic use of fossil fuels while addressing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions...."
The group announced they would form eight public-private sector task forces covering cleaner fossil energy, renewable energy, power generation, steel, aluminium, cement, coal mining and buildings and appliances. They will study anti-pollution technologies and develop action plans "for cooperation, and wherever possibile, ambitious and realistic goals".
Well it does seem a lot more like hot air than action. Particularly their refusal to cut fossil fuel use or to assign any hard targets.
Comments