APEC leaders forge Climate Change Pact

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SYDNEY (Australia) (AP): Pacific Rim leaders Saturday said the world needs to "slow, stop and then reverse" greenhouse gas emissions, and adopted modest goals to curb global warming. Thousands of demonstrators rallied to demand stronger action.
Some experts and activists dismissed as ineffective the program adopted by the presidents of the United States, China, Russia and leaders of other Asia-Pacific economies at an annual summit - which did not set goals for cutting countries' output of polluting gases.
But it sets a precedent because it applies to all of the group's mix of rich and developing members, and could influence upcoming U.N. negotiations on climate change.
"The world needs to slow, stop and then reverse the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions," the 21 leaders said in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum's declaration on climate change.
Leaders "charted a new international consensus for the region and the world," the summit host, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, said outside the Sydney Opera House, where the leaders adopted the declaration on the first of two days of talks.
"If you have APEC, especially the largest emitters - the U.S., China, Russia, Japan - sign up to an agreement like that, it would be hard to ignore at the global level," said Malcolm Cook of Sydney-based think-tank the Lowy Institute.
The program's centerpiece is a goal to reduce "energy intensity" - the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of gross domestic product - 25 percent by 2030.
The only other concrete goal was to increase forest cover in the region by at least 50 million acres by 2020 - enough to absorb about 11 percent of the greenhouse gases the world emitted in 2004, the final statement said.
Both are nonbinding targets in keeping with APEC's voluntary, consensus-based approach.
Environmental groups and some climate change experts said the agreement was weak.
"In practical terms, that will mean almost nothing," said Frank Jotzo, an Australian National University expert in climate change economics. "It is very unambitious."