The burning issue
The newly formed partnership between the United States and five Asian and Pacific nations, including China, to promote clean development has been widely criticised by environmentalists for allegedly undermining the Kyoto Protocol, which makes cuts in carbon dioxide emissions and other global warming gases compulsory for many developed economies.
The pact announced last week by the US, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea has also been lambasted for being long on vision and short on detail about how the harmful effects of burning ever more coal, oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels can be reduced without sharply slowing economic growth.
Of the six participating nations, only Japan is committed to the Kyoto Protocol target of reducing greenhouse emissions by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. The US and Australia refused to sign, partly because large carbon emitters like China, India and South Korea were not classed as developed economies and therefore did not have to implement cuts, at least until a deal on what would happen after 2012 was worked out.
It seems the six countries in the new pact are starting to shape a deal even before formal discussions on a post-Kyoto regime take place in Montreal in November. US President George W. Bush says the six - which together account for about half the world's economic output, population, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions - have formed a results-oriented partnership that will allow them to 'develop and accelerate deployment of cleaner, more efficient energy technologies to meet national pollution reduction, energy security and climate change concerns in ways that reduce poverty and promote economic development'.
This seems like a tall order. Does the cost-efficient technology needed to bring about these results already exist or can it be developed and applied in the near future? How much will it cost those who don't have it, who will pay and will it really be transferred from one pact country to another, especially if it is proprietary and gives competitive advantages to a company, industry or economy?
Answers to some of these questions will be fleshed out as officials of the six partner states prepare for the first meeting of their foreign, environment and energy ministers in Adelaide, Australia, in November. A plan of action is expected to emerge. The partners have said they expect to make progress on energy efficiency (where Japan is a world leader), methane capture and use, rural and village energy systems, clean coal, civilian nuclear power, advanced transportation, liquefied natural gas, geothermal power, improved construction and operation of buildings and homes, bioenergy and renewable energy including water, wind and solar power.
The key to success will be building on mutual interest. For example, can the US, China and India - among the world's biggest consumers of domestically mined coal - find common cause in sharing technology that would turn one of dirtiest fuels into an energy source that emits much less carbon dioxide, dust, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution? Technology is already in use for turning coal into gas or liquid fuels and for tapping methane found in many coal mines. The US and Australia are leaders in cleaner-coal systems.
There is also scope for closer collaboration as both China and the US accelerate efforts to extract liquid fuels from coal. The aim is to find a commercially viable domestic source of these fuels that would enable each country to substitute some of its oil demand for transportation and thus ease dependence on imported energy.
Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. This is a personal comment
