Worst Greenhouse Gas Nations Partner for Cleaner Energy

WASHINGTON, DC, January 9, 2006 (ENS) - Six Asia-Pacific nations that together emit half of all the world's greenhouse gases are forming a new partnership this week to develop cleaner and renewable energy and advanced energy technology. Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States will collaborate to accelerate the development and use of cleaner, more efficient technology.

The collaboration will be launched on Wednesday at the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate Change in Sydney, Australia, hosted by Prime Minister John Howard.

During a briefing Friday in Washington, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky said the partnership will work towards "actions that address the interrelated challenges of promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, enhancing energy security and mitigating air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions."

The partners will collaborate on energy efficiency, clean coal, liquefied natural gas, carbon capture and storage, methane capture and use, civilian nuclear power, rural and village energy systems, advanced transportation, building and home construction and operation, agriculture and forestry, hydropower, wind power, solar power and other renewable energy sources.

Areas for collaboration in the middle to long term are defined as hydrogen, nanotechnologies, and advanced biotechnologies, as well as next-generation nuclear fission and fusion energy.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky (Photo courtesy U.S. State Department)

"Already the beginnings of work plans have begun in a number of the sectors," Dobriansky said, "and some will be developed further in the meeting in Sydney."

Hundreds of demonstrators are planning to protest outside the climate-change conference, said the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales today. The Council represents some 120 environment organizations in the Australian state.

"We're expecting maybe a couple of hundred," said spokesperson Mithra Cox. "We're not intending to blockade the Four Seasons Hotel. We'll just be protesting peacefully."

Nature Conservation Council director Cate Faehrmann said in a statement, "The talks are intended to divert attention away from solutions like renewable energy in favor of non-binding targets using technologies that don't even exist yet."

The collaboration was first announced last July. Participating nations already have formed task forces to study cleaner fossil fuel energy, renewable energy and distributed generation, power generation and transmission, aluminum, steel, cement, buildings and appliances and mining.

"The central core of this initiative, said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, "is to develop work plans that have real commitments behind them."

The United States has a regulatory target to cut air pollution by nearly 70 percent from power plants in two phases in 2010 and 2015, Connaughton said.

Another target is to cut the sulfur from diesel fuel by 99 percent in 2007, and then cut nitrogen oxide emissions from new vehicles by 90 percent starting in 2007.

China's Gongyi-2 power plant in the northern province of Hebei burns coal to power the local grid and the Henan Zhongmai Yong'an Aluminium Co. (Photo courtesy Peak Pacific (China) Investment Ltd)

The new initiative is a complement, not an alternative, to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to that pact, the officials said.

Connaughton said, "We find this to be a much more powerful way of engaging," than the Kyoto Protocol with its greenhouse gas reduction targets, "because it is tailored to the priorities that each country has set for themselves in accordance with their own national circumstances."

Some of the countries in the partnership are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol - Japan, China, India and South Korea, but only Japan is legally bound by the protocol to meet its greenhouse gas reduction target to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by six percent by 2012.

The Bayswater power plant in New South Wales burns coal and emits greenhouse gases. (Photo courtesy Macquarie Generation)

The United States expects to commit significant financial resources to the partnership, Dobriansky said, and the administration intends to work with the private sector and others to leverage the investment.

"This financial commitment will build upon and complement our nearly $3 billion annual investment to develop and deploy such cutting-edge energy technologies as hydrogen, carbon sequestration, nuclear energy, renewable fuels and electricity, and highly efficient appliances, vehicles and buildings," Dobriansky said.

Dobriansky said the new partnership goes beyond the Kyoto Protocol and greenhouse gas emissions by addressing economic growth, energy security and air pollution.

She said, "Countries like India and China are grappling with issues relevant to economic growth and looking for effective and efficient ways to advance their economies and do it in a very environmentally responsible way."