KEY POINTS:
Few hopes were held that the Apec meeting in Sydney would achieve much of substance. The expectation was of a talkfest but no progress on pressing issues, mainly climate change and world trade negotiations, and barely a sideways glance at the group's major purpose, the pursuit of mutually beneficial trading relationships in the Asia-Pacific region. In terms of the latter, the predictions proved correct. But only the most dogged of doomsayers would deny the significant advances in other spheres.
Most significantly, the meeting declaration committed Apec's 21 member countries to work within the United Nations framework on climate change. This was an important concession by the United States. As recently as the G8 summit in mid-year, it had seemed intent on undermining international unanimity by pursuing an alternative response, including a meeting next month of the 15 top polluting nations.
In Sydney, it said that conference would contribute to the UN process. This involves negotiations on a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto Protocol, beginning in Bali in December.
Prodding the US into a mainstream approach that includes hard targets to reduce pollution was not the only advance in Sydney. The declaration also said that every country should contribute to a long-term aspirational goal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions "taking into account national circumstances and allowing for a range of market-based policy measures". This signified Chinese agreement to the concept of developing nations, as well as developed countries, cutting their emissions. While Kyoto was about the rich nations taking a lead, an undertaking rejected by the US and Australia, the path has been prepared for more equal sharing of pain in a comprehensive post-2012 agreement.
Critics, of course, noted the inclusion of only aspirational goals and lamented the absence of any binding clauses in the Sydney Declaration. But that is never the way of Apec. It is about impetus, rather than instruction. In that regard, there was also cause for guarded encouragement about global trade liberalisation talks. Crucial deadlines for the World Trade Organisation's Doha round loom, and many are ready to pen its obituary. But the Apec nations, which comprise 56 per cent of the global economy, were notably anxious to engineer renewed momentum and agreed on a more unified approach. While most have been actively seeking bilateral trade agreements, their declaration recognised these were very much a second-best to a global trade pact.
New Zealand, of course, would benefit far more than most from a successful conclusion to the Doha round. Its own bilateral backstop is focused on China and, in the longer term, the US. But momentum on an agreement with Beijing seems to be slipping, and post-Apec talks in Auckland under the banner of the US-NZ Partnership Forum provided little of encouragement. A free trade agreement was logical rather than inevitable, the Assistant Secretary of State, Christopher Hill, said. In reality, it is probably receding as a prospect, given the control of Congress by the more protectionist-minded Democrats, and the likelihood they will claim the White House next year.
That would be equally discouraging for global trade talks. This, however, should not cast a cloud over the energy generated in Sydney. On climate change and, to a lesser degree, trade, there were crucial steps towards consensus. Indeed, Apec went quite some way towards being the important forum its membership suggests it should be.
