China One of Six Nations Behind New "Clean Energy" Fund

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China and five other nations have agreed to create a new multi-million dollar fund to promote cleaner energy technologies, reports EurActiv.com. The decision was reached at the inaugural ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, held in Sydney, Australia, on January 11-12. The climate partnership was formalized in July 2005 between Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, and the United States.

These six nations, which represent about half of the world's human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, agreed at the meeting to collaborate on a wide range of energy projects involving "clean" coal, liquefied natural gas, methane, and rural energy systems, as well as renewable sources like geothermal, solar, wind, and bioenergy. In the long term, they hope to also develop hydrogen nanotechnologies, next-generation nuclear fission, and fusion energy, according to the final communiqué.

Neither the United States or Australia, the only two industrial countries in the pact, have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty that calls for scheduled reductions in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. (Developing countries, meanwhile, remain exempt from the agreement.) Participating officials from the six nations believe the new Asia-Pacific collaboration will make a far greater impact on emissions reductions worldwide. Australia has committed $75 million to the fund over five years, and U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman will request a $52 million contribution from his country's 2007 budget.

Unlike the Kyoto agreement, the Asia-Pacific Partnership does not contain binding targets or a timetable to achieve greenhouse emission reductions. Critics and environmentalists suspect it will be largely ineffective because it is non-binding, while some politicians feel that, as a competitor to Kyoto, it could distract the world's attention away from the need for climate regulations and push the issue further into the realm of power politics.

China regards the partnership as a constructive framework for cooperation and has called for concrete projects to achieve the pact's emissions-reduction goals. It has stressed the importance of technology cooperation and believes the partnership should play a complementary role to the Kyoto Protocol.