The Asia-Pacific Partnership is a pact designed to increase the development and dispersal of new technologies in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

When the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted on December 11, 1997, several industrialized nations had reservations about its fairness and potential effectiveness. The United States, the only developed nation that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, believed that complying with the treaty would put undue strain on the U.S. economy. President George W. Bush objected in 2001 to provisions that called for the United States to reduce its carbon emissions while exempting China and India, which with the United States were among the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). India and China, on the other hand, objected to the idea that they should deny technological advancement to their large and poor populations. Bush promised to develop an alternative plan that would address GHG emissions more effectively than the Kyoto Protocol while at the same time eradicating poverty and protecting human health, American jobs, and American investments.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) was announced on July 28, 2005, after months of closed-door negotiations. At the APP's first ministerial meeting in Sydney, Australia, in January, 2006, ministers created a formal charter to provide a structure for the partnership, as well as a work plan. According to the White House, the goals of the APP grew out of the work of earlier initiatives, including the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, the International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy, and Methane to Markets. With Canada, which joined the APP in 2007, member countries are responsible for about one-half of the world's GHG emissions and contain about one-half of the world's population. Australia, China, India, and the United States are the world's four largest coal-consuming nations.

The formal documents do not include timetables, targets, or dedicated funding; these aspects of the partnership are voluntary and are set individually by each country. The stated goals of the APP are to develop new clean technologies, increase the use of existing clean technologies, address growing energy needs, reduce GHG emissions, protect economic development, enhance international collaboration, and find ways to make use of the private sector.

Eight public-private task forces were established at the Sydney meeting to focus on aluminum, buildings and appliances, cement, cleaner fossil energy, coal mining, power generation and transmission, renewable energy and distributed generation, and steel. In its discussions of the work plan, the Bush administration emphasized the potential of clean coal, coal gasification, and nuclear power, as well as the increased opportunity for investment that would drive private industry innovation.

The APP's work plan describes several specific tasks. Partners will identify possible storage sites for carbon sequestration, develop appropriate power solutions for rural areas, find cleaner ways to manufacture cement and steel, and improve the energy efficiency of buildings. Other projects include creating renewable energy hubs in rural areas of India and China, granting scholarships for studying photovoltaics and solar energy engineering, and developing small wind turbines for remote areas.

Observers are divided about the possible impact of the Asia-Pacific Partnership. Supporters argue that the flexibility inherent in the partnership will lead to greater compliance and success, while complementing the work of the Kyoto Protocol. Governments and businesses have welcomed the APP as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, which some have seen as too restrictive and not cost-effective. Opponents, including many environmental groups, contend that since the partnership's targets are voluntary and since each nation is responsible for monitoring its own compliance, little will be achieved. They believe that the APP was created to supplant, not to complement, the Kyoto Protocol. Some opponents, however, have acknowledged that the formation of APP was a sign of progress. Nonetheless, in the first two years after the formation of the Asia-Pacific Partnership, none of the member countries succeeded in lowering its GHG emissions.

Bibliography:

1)         Eichengreen, Barry, Yung Chul Park, and Charles Wyplosz, eds. China, Asia, and the New World Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

2)         Flannery, Tim. "The Ominous New Pact." The New York Review of Books 53, no. 3 (February 23, 2006): 24.

3)         Gerrard, Michael B., ed. Global Climate Change and U.S. Law. Chicago: American Bar Association, 2007.

4)         Klare, Michael T. Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.

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