An alternative to Kyoto

ASEAN

Jul 28th 2005 BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition

America unveils a new plan to combat global warming

SUMMITS of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are not known for suspense or surprises. But the regional club's latest pow-wow, which is due to conclude in Vientiane, Laos, on July 29th, involved plenty of both.

First, Myanmar's military regime waited until the last minute to announce that it would forgo ASEAN's rotating chairmanship, and so spare the group an embarrassing boycott. Then, at the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting, where South-East Asian countries get together with other Asian and Pacific nations, Australia agreed to sign a non-aggression treaty with the group in exchange for an invitation to yet another summit, where ASEAN hopes to start work on an East Asian free-trade area. But the biggest bolt from the blue was the announcement, by America and five Asia-Pacific countries, that they had devised a new pact to combat global warming.

The details of this non-binding “Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate” are fuzzy. But it emphasises technology transfers to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, rather than the fixed targets and caps of the Kyoto protocol, the UN treaty on climate change. Rich countries might help poorer ones develop devices to cut carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, for example.

Two of the signatories of the new pact, America and Australia, have already rejected the Kyoto agreement as too rigid. Two others, China and India, are not bound by the protocol as it applies only to developed nations. Indeed, of the six signatories to the new pact, only Japan and South Korea have formally ratified Kyoto. In theory, therefore, the “partnership” could enormously extend efforts to counter climate change. The countries concerned account for almost half the world's population, economic output and greenhouse emissions.

Environmentalists dismissed the deal as toothless. Many fear it will stymie efforts to persuade developing nations to sign up to Kyoto by the target date of 2012. The new pact's members insist that it will complement Kyoto, not supplant it. One Australian official claims that it is designed to reduce emissions faster than Kyoto would have. His country has devised a copper-bottomed plan to convince sceptics: another summit, to be held in Adelaide in November.

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