APEC Leaders follow conclusions of Joint Academies of Science

The leaders of 21 nations participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum have adopted a draft declaration on greenhouse gases, accepting for the first time concrete global goals to reduce CO2 emissions.

Although the draft plan, dubbed the "Sydney Declaration" by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, sets only non-binding targets, it represents a dramatic compromise between rich and poor APEC economies and retains the UN climate change convention as the primary framework to fight global warming.

Most significantly, it is seen as a triumph for the U.S. and Australia in persuading China, a major polluter, and other developing nations to accept measurable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

With the Kyoto Protocol on climate change due to be replaced in the coming years by a more binding agreement, the APEC draft will likely serve as the basis for the UN climate change summit in Bali, Indonesia in December.

The statement, which was released ahead of Saturday's summit-level meeting, said in part: "We call for a post-2012 international climate change arrangement...that strengthens, broadens and deepens the current arrangement and leads to reduced global emissions of greenhouse gases."

Among the initial targets agreed to, energy efficiency in the Asia-Pacific region will be improved by at least 25% by 2030 over 2005 levels.

Forest areas in the region will also be increased by 20 million hectares by 2020.
The statement said that, if achieved, the new forest cover would store approximately 1.4 billion tons of carbons, equivalent to around 11% of annual global emissions.

As we reported on the Joint academies of science from the G8 Energy summit in Russia in 2006.

The g8 Joint science academies have released the outline for the global situation and the security of the energy complex for sustainability, innovation,and development.As we have suggested there are a number of interesting developments ,that will see a mix of new technology,efficiency and evolution of existing technology.

Broad international consensus recognizes three principal, inter-related components of sustainable development: economic prosperity, social development, and environmental protection. Sustainable and reliable supply of energy is one of the major conditions for achieving these three goals ,for all countries of the world: if energy sustainability and security fail, the primary human development goals cannot be achieved.

Providing for global energy sustainability and security will require many vigorous actions at national levels, and considerable international cooperation. These actions and cooperative steps will need to be based on wide- spread public support, especially in exploring venues for increased efficiency of energy use. Secondly, it will be necessary to develop and deploy new sources and systems for energy supply, including clean use of coal and unconventional fossil resources, advanced nuclear systems, and renewable energy. Diversification of engine fuels, increased use of low-emissions technologies in personal transport, and greater emphasis in deployment of urban mass transit would introduce much-needed flexibility and economy in a rapidly urbanizing world.

The necessary changes and transitions in energy systems and paradigms will not be possible without achievement of many challenging scientific, technical and economic objectives, and will require the investment of enormous resources in a sustained way over decades. They will also require major openness and transfer of knowledge, technology and capital.

We call on world leaders, especially those meeting at the G8 Summit in July 2006, to:
- Articulate the reality and urgency of global energy security concerns;
- Plan for the massive infrastructure investments, and lead times required for a transition to clean, affordable and sustainable energy systems;
- Itensify cooperation with developing countries to build their domestic capacities to use existing and innovative energy systems and technologies, including transfer of technologies;
- Promote by appropriate policies and economic instruments the development and implementation of cost-competitive, environmentally beneficial, and market acceptable clean fossil, nuclear, and renewable technologies;
- Ensure, in cooperation with industry, that technologies are developed and implemented and actions taken to protect energy infrastructures from natural disasters, technological failures, and human actions;
- Address the serious inadequacy of R&D funding and provide incentives to accelerate advanced energy-related R&D, also in partnership with private companies;
- Implement education programs to increase public understanding of energy challenges, and to provide for energy-related expertise and engineering capabilities;
- Focus governmental research and technology efforts on energy efficiency, non-conventional hydrocarbons and clean coal with CO2 sequestration, innovative nuclear power, distributed power systems, renewable energy sources, biomass production, biomass and gas conversion for fuels.

The InterAcademy Council, established by the Academies of the world, is now engaged in an in- depth examination of this energy technology transition challenge, to be completed by November there are some interesting perspectives in the initial drafts.

We can conclude that the "consensus" of the Joint academies is for innovative cost efficient solutions and technological transfers.It is a priori that there is incentive not disincentive for investment viz a viz the "taxation and command and control regimes" suggested by the strange inhabitants of the "eco groups"