|
SYDNEY, Australia, January 18, 2006 (Refocus
Weekly)
The United States and Australia have pledged to
spend US$127 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting
renewable energies and cleaner ways to use coal.
The six countries at the first meeting of the Asia Pacific
Partnership on Clean Development & Climate acknowledged that the
combustion of fossil fuels will remain critical to their economies,
although those fuel sources are linked with climate change. The
partnership includes the United States, the world's largest emitter
of GHG, and Australia, the world's largest exporter of coal, as well
as China, India, South Korea and Japan.
The countries have 45% of the world's population and account for
half of the world's gross domestic product, energy consumption and
global GHG emissions.
Energy measures favoured by the U.S. and Australia include greater
use of wind, solar and other renewable energies, as well as treating
coal to release fewer GHG when it is burned, or to use carbon
geosequestration. Australian prime minister John Howard pledged to
invest $75 million over five years to combat global warming, and the
U.S. delegation said President George Bush will seek $52 million in
his 2007 budget.
The U.S. and Australia were the largest industrialized countries to
refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which legally binds nations to
reduce GHG emissions by 2012. As emerging economies, China and India
have no mandatory Kyoto targets.
"Coal and gas are and will remain critical fuels for all six partner
economies," said the final communique of the two day meeting.
Delegates insisted that industry leaders will voluntarily reduce
emissions.
Environmentalists say the pledges are far too little, and claim the
group is focused on unproven technologies which are designed to
support the fossil fuel industry.
“We are deeply concerned that Australia and the USA will not only
miss the opportunity to lead us towards the renewable energy economy
that we need to tackle climate change, but won't even take the first
simple and effective steps down that road,” said a statement from
Greenpeace. Delegates are “trying to hoodwink the public by claiming
that voluntary agreements to make coal cleaner would be all we need
to tackle climate change.”
“It appears that, as we had feared, this conference is all about
protecting the coal industry and not about taking serious action to
tackle climate change,” explained Catherine Fitzpatrick. “From the
little anyone has been told of the details of this pact, there will
be no binding arrangements to reduce pollution, no targets and no
timelines.”
“Talk is cheap and the price of inaction is expensive,” she says.
“The pact's focus on technology to tackle climate change seems to
mean only the dangerous and unproven geosequestration, not clean
renewable energy technologies such as solar, geothermal, wind and
energy efficiency.”
“Conference delegates are well aware that renewable energy
technologies already exist, are ready to be implemented on a massive
scale, will generate jobs and investment and is already growing fast
around the world, thanks to the Kyoto Protocol,” she explained. “By
setting targets, Kyoto has already encouraged investment in cleaner
technologies and is already reducing greenhouse pollution.”
U.S. energy secretary Samuel Bodman says nuclear must be considered
as an option if there are to be cuts in GHG emissions, because
global demand for electricity will increase 50% over the next 20
years. “Nuclear power, it seems to me, is an obvious requirement”
for the future, he is quoted.
Visit http://www.sparksdata.co.uk/refocus/
for your international energy focus!!
Refocus © Copyright 2005, Elsevier
Ltd, All rights reserved.
|
