One of the more interesting byplays at the recent Apec meeting in Sydney was the interaction between Australia and Beijing. President Hu Jintao lectured Australian Prime Minister John Howard on the primacy of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, as the assembled officials cobbled together their so-called Sydney Declaration on global warming.
That agreement sets a target of a 25 per cent reduction in energy consumption by 2030, and a 20-million-hectare increase in forested areas in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020.
The goal: an annual 11 per cent cut in global greenhouse emissions.
Beijing appears to view the Sydney Declaration as complimenting, but in no sense replacing, the Kyoto Protocol. Mr Hu took a direct swipe at Mr Howard and US President George W. Bush for refusing to sign up for Kyoto's binding reduction targets.
Mr Hu did not mince his words. He told Mr Bush, Mr Howard and other Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum participants that developed countries should face up to their historical responsibility for global warming and their current high per capita emissions of greenhouse gases; strictly abide by their emissions reduction targets; and continue to take the lead in reducing emissions after 2012, when Kyoto expires.
Mr Hu made it clear that Beijing regards the Kyoto framework as 'the core mechanism and main channel for addressing climate change'.
In other words, Mr Hu was directly contradicting Mr Howard's view, expressed as recently as September 2, that 'continuing down the Kyoto path is [not] going to provide a solution to the problem'.