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CANBERRA - Apec nations must move towards a common commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says.
Climate change will be high on the agenda when Mr Downer and Trade Minister Warren Truss meet with Apec foreign and trade ministers in Sydney today.
During the meeting, Mr Downer will push for a clear climate change strategy, which includes establishing "aspirational" green house gas reduction targets and strategies for countries to reach those goals.
Mr Downer said Apec was a good opportunity to involve developing countries, such as China, in strategies to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
"Under the architecture that currently exists, the Kyoto architecture, essentially the developed countries ... make a commitment to mitigate their CO2 emissions, whereas developing countries, which include China, ... don't make any commitments," Mr Downer told the Nine Network.
"What we are saying is that we would like the world to move from that position to a position where all countries make a common commitment to stabilising and eventually reducing C02 emissions.
"That sounds simple enough except that that hasn't happened yet."
Mr Downer said drawing developing countries such as China into an emissions reduction model "will be very difficult".
"If we are going to get really good progress ... with countries that are the biggest emitters in the world ... we are going to have to involve them more in the process," he said.
"The task for us is to work with them and try to get a good outcome."
Mr Downer and Prime Minister John Howard will meet with China's President Hu Jintao for lunch today.
Mr Downer said the lunch will be a good opportunity to discuss climate change.
"It's one of the great challenges of diplomacy, I'm not too pessimistic about it, I think we can at least make some progress here," he said.
"We are trying to create an environment which will ensure we will get a truly effective global response to climate change and to C02 emissions."
Mr Downer said discussions with Indonesia would also be important to the issue of climate change.
"Indonesia is very helpful to us in the context of the climate change issue and over the weekend we will be making some announcements on work we've been doing to together on reforestation."
- AAP
