New York City, Friday January 13, 2005

“The polluters” include four out of the five highest polluting countries - US, China, Japan, and India. Only Russia, the 3-rd, is missing from the top 5. South Korea is the 10-th polluter and Australia is the 14-th. The first future country to be asked to join and expected to oblige and accept, is Canada after take over of the government by the Conservatives. Canada is the 7-th largest polluter. AP6 includes about half of humanity, uses about half of the energy consumed globally, and is responsible for about half of the GHG emissions globally.

Friday the 13-th is a day hated by paraskevidekatriaphobics, so it is quite appropriate to vent my feelings, right today, about the results of the January 11 - January 12 Sydney meeting of the AP6.

 Chinapost.com.tw - “Nuclear Power Absent From Climate Action Plan.” United Press International marks in its International Intelligence: “Climate Change Conference Defends Coal. So what were the final words of the conference material?

AP6 have decided on a fund to which Australia contributed !00 million Australian dollars or the equivalent of US$ 75 million. The US promised $67 million of which they will be asking Congress to approve $52 million for the 2007 budget year. Above amounts to a fund of $127 million. Australia partitions its 100 million Australian dollars into a $5 million part to support the Asia-Pacific partnership on clean development, but the remaining $95 million are intended for projects worked on with Australia’s direct involvement; of these 25 million should go for renewable energy technologies. I guess that leaves 70 million, if you wish, as we shall see further for coal technologies; you could think of this as a way to support increased exports of Australian coal. Critics said that the amounts for renewables are a pittance compared to what would be needed to make a dent on the subject of combating GHG emissions and that this was nothing more then an effort to protect the long-term future of the coal industry Clive Hamilton, head of Australia’s Climate Institute, told ABC Online - “If you look at the sort of business people who have a seat at the table at the conference in Sydney, they overwhelmingly represent polluting industries rather than those that will at some time in the future replace them.” James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was quoted as saying the $52 million are for “to manage the partnership work.”

Canberra and Washington are the only capitals that refused the KP and are ready to put up now some peanuts to create an alternative; interesting, Tokyo, the father of Kyoto, and Seoul, did not pledge funds for the AP6 and we would like to have reason to hope that they find it more convenient to continue to work within the KP framework. China and India, members of the KP, but members on the receiving end, are being targeted to be also on the receiving end of the AP6 Pact.

Further, the AP6 will set up eight taskforces to tackle climate change. Australia chairs the fossil energy and aluminum taskforces and co-chairs the renewable energy taskforce with South Korea. Nuclear power was not mentioned in the final document but Mr. Bodman, the US Secretary of Energy said that could be addressed by the renewable energy taskforce. Some say that though the US pushed so hard for nuclear energy as a non-polluting source of energy, and Australia backed the idea, as it has all that uranium for export, nevertheless others were not ready to deal with the subject openly, so it did not get a taskforce. Now, Mr. Bodman’s suggestion just shows him to be a bad loser. Further, the Taiwanese Chinapost.com.tw writes that Bodman said nuclear power could be added in the future to task forces that already include the promotion of renewable energy sources and cleaner ways to use coal - we assume here that he believes coal to be also a renewable - another novel idea from the US.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, whose country is negotiating to sell billions of dollars worth of uranium to China, says the Chinapost, insisted that nuclear power plants are greenhouse friendly but acknowledged the industry faces other issues “in terms of disposal of waste and security issues.” As North Korea and Iran illustrate, it can be difficult to differentiate a country’s desire to use nuclear energy to supply power, or more sinister goals of obtaining nuclear material for weapons. Even Bodman expressed fears of terrorists obtaining the raw material to build nuclear weapons from a power plant where security might be lax “After 9/11 in our country, the threat of terrorists is something that we take very seriously and there is concern over the potential access of terrorists to raw materials,” he said. So what does the US want when it comes to nuclear power? We are left perplexed, and our suggestion is to invite next time North Korea and Iran and to hear their defense on the subject.

BBC News, in its piece - “Pact Will Not Reduce Emissions” says that critics contend that it is a business deal and diversion from the Kyoto Protocol.

The Indian Environment Minister, in a Reuters interview, said yesterday that his country will not agree to binding cuts to greenhouse gases under the KP, but hopes boosting its nuclear industry will save its cities from choking air pollution. India now depends 50% on coal for its energy, but has also 15 nuclear power plants, and is under pressure to boost energy production to meet a furious pace of industrialization. In July 2005 the US signed a deal with India after 25 years of denying cooperation in the nuclear area. The agreement must be approved by Congress, and commits India to place nuclear operations associated with its civilian energy programme under international cooperation.

The Environment News Service writes under the title: “China and India to Steer Global Sustainability.” According to the Worldwatch Institute new “State of the World 2006″, China and India are poised to join the US as “planetary powers” with economic muscle and influence to transform the ecological future of the Earth. The rising demand for natural resources, energy and food, by the 2.5 billion people of China and India “is already having ripple effects worldwide,” said Christopher Flavin, President of WWI. Flavin sees the potential of China and India moving to do the right thing and points out that China has tightened fuel economy standards and declared public transit a national priority. I dare to add that in effect that Beijing shows better intentions in this regard then Washington. They have already solar power to heat water for 35 million people - not much for China, but a start anyway. Flavin says that if China and India do begin to move forward with leapfrog strategy we risk losing out on some of the great new industries of the 21st century. “It is a challenge at least as much for us as it is for them.” Nice words that probably have no meaning for Mr. Bodman - and that is our tragedy.

The AP6 meeting concluded that “The partnership efforts in technology and best practice could lead to partners’ emissions being 30% less in 2050 than would have otherwise been the case.” The critics point out that above means that by 2050 they predict in effect a doubling of emissions if if they attain their goal. This would lead to a 4 degrees Celsius increase in temperature while 2 degrees is considered already very dangerous. A former senior executive of BP, and now CEO of WWF Australia Greg Bourne, says of the AP6 concluding statement: “in my whole career, I have never seen a more misleading public statement.”