Smoke stacks of the Mae Moh coal power plant. Coal power stations emit huge amounts of pollution including gasses like CO2 which cause global warming. The 'US - Asia Pacific Pact' does nothing to tackle such emissions.
The US, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea - all
workingtogether to tackle climate change and save the planet?
Sounds likegood news!
At first glance the new 'US -Asia Pacific Pact' would seem an
encouraging development. It is clearthat avoiding the very worst of
climate change means rapidly developingcountries like China and
India will need to start 'decarbonising.' Andgiven the US and
Australia's previous refusal to take any meaningfulaction to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions, isn't it a good thingthat all of
these countries have signed up to the pact?
Well the key word here is 'meaningful.' On further investigation
theagreement has no targets for emissions reductions, no timetables
ordeadlines, in fact it doesn't even mention emissions reductions -
oh,and it's completely voluntary. In fact it looks like nothing
more thana trade agreement on energy technology.
In a perfect worldeven this could result in better energy
efficiency and renewable energytechnologies for developing
countries but experience tells us that thetechnologies that most
interest the US and Australia are the 'magicbullet' ones that claim
to reduce emissions whilst allowing thecontinued burning of fossil
Take "carbon capture and storage" for instance; the 'suck it out
of thesky and stick it under arock' approach. This process promises
to trap CO2 from the burning offossil fuels and store it in the sea
or under the Earth's surface. Evenifit delivers it won't be ready
for at least 15-20 years, it willincrease the cost of power
generation, reduce the efficiency of powerplants and require
long-term monitoring to make sure the CO2 stays put.
Whilst money is diverted into these future technologies in a bid
tocontinue business as usual, proven renewable and energy
efficiencytechnologies that are ready to use now lack investment
from bothgovernments and industry.
Which leadsus to motivation. The US and Australia have both
refused to ratify theKyoto Protocol, the one existing international
agreement on dealingwith climate change. They have spent years
trying to undermine andderail the treaty on the basis that
developing countries don't havetargets so it is unfair.
It is obvious to everyone, including the 152 nations that have
ratified Kyoto, that industrialised countries that got rich
through theuse of fossil fuels have a responsibility to act first
to correct theproblem.
The average American uses more electricity in twoweeks than the
average person in India uses in a year. US emissionshave increased
by 16 percent since 1990 and are projected to be 32percent above
1990 levels in by 2012. Australian emissions from energyare
projected to be 66 percent above 1990 levels by 2020 and its
percapita emissions are 6 times as high as China.
Developingcountries will not be motivated to adopt targets
whilst the world'sbiggest CO2 emitter and the world's biggest per
capita emitter sitcomfortably on their hands and refuse to act.
The obviouscourse of action would be to ratify Kyoto and get on
with reducingtheir emissions. Instead we get this disingenuous
attempt to financeminor changes abroad whilst doing nothing at
home, with the cleverlittle side effect, focussing as it does on
so-called "clean coal"technology, of securing new coal markets for
This is a fig leaf of enormous proportions - but it fails to hide anything.
StephanieTunmore initially started working in the peace movement
in the 80'sbefore joining Greenpeace in 1989. Since 1996 she has
worked onclimate issues, leading campaigns against BP and
Take action on climate change
Unlike the US and Australia discover what real action you can take to tackle climate change.
Support real action
We rely on the support of individuals like you to help us fight for a green and peaceful planet.