APEC leaders pledge to advance faltering global trade talks
Pacific Rim leaders on Sunday pledged political will and flexibility to advance faltering global trade talks as a matter of urgency.
By Agencies |
SYDNEY: Pacific Rim leaders on Sunday pledged political will and flexibility to advance faltering global trade talks as a matter of urgency, after striking an agreement on climate change they hope will influence a new global strategy on the problem. Wrapping up an annual summit, the leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies said breaking a deadlock over trade in agricultural and manufactured goods was vital to saving the current trade negotiations.
“There has never been a more urgent need to make progress” in the World Trade Organisation talks, said the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, whose economies account for nearly half of world trade. “We pledge the political will, flexibility and ambition to ensure the Doha Round negotiations enter their final phase this year,” the leaders said in a statement.
“We call on our WTO partners to join in this vital effort.” Most of the leaders then headed home from their two days of talks — the culmination of a week of consultations among senior officials and hobnobbing and round-robin diplomacy among the leaders. Outside APEC’s discussions on trade and climate change, US President George W Bush tried to bolster relations with Australia, a key ally in the Iraq war, and held testy meetings with China’s Hu Jintao and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Australian Prime Minister John Howard sealed a deal to provide uranium to Russia.
Addressing a major political issue back home, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday said he was ready to resign if parliament fails to extend Japan’s refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of US-led anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan. There was a minor security scare Sunday when a small civilian plane flew toward air space over Sydney that was subject to special restrictions because of APEC. FA-18 fighters intercepted the plane and escorted it to land at an airport on the city’s outskirts, government agencies said.
Howard claimed success Sunday for the summit’s centerpiece agreement on climate change. The agreement, he said, on two nonbinding goals — on improving energy efficiency and increasing forest cover —were important steps toward building a new international consensus for tackling the problem.
“No one meeting, no one agreement is going to fix this issue,” Howard said at the summit’s final press conference, but the declaration was “a very significant step” in the debate. The APEC program does not set targets on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, unlike the UN-backed Kyoto Protocol.
Instead, APEC members will reduce ‘energy intensity’ — the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of gross domestic product — 25% by 2030. They pledged to increase forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares (50 million acres) by 2020.
Though environmental activists and some climate change experts dismissed the agreement as too timid, supporters said the significance lay in getting APEC’s diverse grouping to agree to common goals.
APEC contains four of the world’s biggest polluters — the US, China, Russia and Japan. So the agreement may influence upcoming talks in Washington, New York and Indonesia on a new climate change blueprint to replace Kyoto, which expires in 2012.
On trade, Howard said the so-called Doha round of negotiations represents “the last best hope for an aggregate multilateral trade agreement.” Negotiations resumed in Geneva last week on two new proposals to break a deadlock between rich and poor nations over how much to cut.
“There has never been a more urgent need to make progress” in the World Trade Organisation talks, said the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, whose economies account for nearly half of world trade. “We pledge the political will, flexibility and ambition to ensure the Doha Round negotiations enter their final phase this year,” the leaders said in a statement.
“We call on our WTO partners to join in this vital effort.” Most of the leaders then headed home from their two days of talks — the culmination of a week of consultations among senior officials and hobnobbing and round-robin diplomacy among the leaders. Outside APEC’s discussions on trade and climate change, US President George W Bush tried to bolster relations with Australia, a key ally in the Iraq war, and held testy meetings with China’s Hu Jintao and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Australian Prime Minister John Howard sealed a deal to provide uranium to Russia.
Addressing a major political issue back home, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday said he was ready to resign if parliament fails to extend Japan’s refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of US-led anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan. There was a minor security scare Sunday when a small civilian plane flew toward air space over Sydney that was subject to special restrictions because of APEC. FA-18 fighters intercepted the plane and escorted it to land at an airport on the city’s outskirts, government agencies said.
Howard claimed success Sunday for the summit’s centerpiece agreement on climate change. The agreement, he said, on two nonbinding goals — on improving energy efficiency and increasing forest cover —were important steps toward building a new international consensus for tackling the problem.
“No one meeting, no one agreement is going to fix this issue,” Howard said at the summit’s final press conference, but the declaration was “a very significant step” in the debate. The APEC program does not set targets on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, unlike the UN-backed Kyoto Protocol.
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Instead, APEC members will reduce ‘energy intensity’ — the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of gross domestic product — 25% by 2030. They pledged to increase forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares (50 million acres) by 2020.
Though environmental activists and some climate change experts dismissed the agreement as too timid, supporters said the significance lay in getting APEC’s diverse grouping to agree to common goals.
APEC contains four of the world’s biggest polluters — the US, China, Russia and Japan. So the agreement may influence upcoming talks in Washington, New York and Indonesia on a new climate change blueprint to replace Kyoto, which expires in 2012.
On trade, Howard said the so-called Doha round of negotiations represents “the last best hope for an aggregate multilateral trade agreement.” Negotiations resumed in Geneva last week on two new proposals to break a deadlock between rich and poor nations over how much to cut.
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