Growing Asian interest in climate pact

MELBOURNE - Southeast Asian countries have expressed interest in joining a US-led partnership to cut greenhouse gas emissions by developing technology and economic incentives, says Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate among Australia, the US, China, Japan, South Korea and India was unveiled at an Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) forum in Laos last week.

"The Asean governments were asking me whether it would be possible for them to join this partnership in time," Downer said.

"And I made it clear that once we've worked out how we want it all to come together, we, in principle, would be happy to see Asean countries become involved because their economies are growing and they're significant emitters as well."

Unlike the Kyoto agreement, which requires cuts in greenhouse emissions by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012, the Asia-Pacific partnership has no time frames or targets.

"We hope that we'll start to get results ... fairly quickly," Downer said. "That's going to require collaborative research. It's also going to mean we'll have to investigate price signals coming from energy."

The six founding partners account for 45 per cent of the world's population, 48 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and 48 per cent of energy consumption.

The US and Australia are the only developed nations outside Kyoto. Both say Kyoto, agreed to in 1997, is flawed because it omits developing states.

- REUTERS