SYDNEY - Asia-Pacific countries including the world's worst polluters -- the United States and China -- will outline tactics for the post-Kyoto fight against climate change at a major summit this week.
But a draft of the declaration on global warming to be delivered at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next Sunday has already been dismissed by experts and activists as mere hot air.
The 21 member states "agree that a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal will be a key component of the post 2012 framework," according to the draft.
The main international treaty on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012 and the APEC summit is one of a series in which plans for a post-Kyoto agreement are being discussed.
The draft declaration recognises the need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, but sets no enforceable targets for the 21 APEC members.
"If you ever see non-binding, no targets, no deadlines, no enforcement -- we know how that works," said eminent Australian scientist and author Tim Flannery.
"What we are talking about is a taxation system for polluters -- so a voluntary taxation system for polluters would work just as well as a voluntary taxation system for income tax."
The draft declaration has the member governments agreeing "to work toward the goal of a reduction in energy intensity across the APEC region by at least 25 percent by 2030."
But critics say unenforceable measures to reduce energy intensity, which is based on a link between energy consumption and a country's gross domestic product, do not guarantee a reduction in greenhouse gases.
"In 1995 the world community agreed that voluntary, aspirational targets were ineffective and, as such, negotiated the Kyoto Protocol which includes binding emission reduction commitments," said Greenpeace.
"To return to aspirational targets would throw away 12 years of progress," said Greenpeace energy campaigner Ben Pearson. The environmental group has posted the draft declaration on its Australian website.
Host Prime Minister John Howard has said climate change is top of the agenda for the summit, but Flannery said he had very low hopes for APEC.
"I don't think anything significant will be decided in terms of climate change -- but I hope to be proven wrong."
The APEC meeting is just one of three international conferences this month to tackle a problem which scientists warn could lead to increasingly dangerous storms, heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
It will be followed in two weeks by a special UN meeting called by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a few days after that by a conference in Washington called by President George W. Bush.
Bush has invited 15 nations and the European Union, which together account for 80 percent of greenhouse emissions, to set long-term goals on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
And in December the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) Conference of Parties and parties to the Kyoto Protocol will meet in Bali, Indonesia to plan strategies for the post-Kyoto world.
Bush and Howard head the only two countries in the world which have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, complaining that cutting emissions could hurt their economies and that developing countries do not face similar restrictions.
Critics say this devalues their contribution to the debate.
"At the moment we are in this farcical position where George Bush has said what he wants to do is consistent with the UN process, Australia is unclear on what it wants to do and we are still outside Kyoto," said Flannery.
"I would have thought that the first logical step would be to just ratify the Kyoto Protocol so you are at least part of the UN negotiations."
Flannery said he expects the key elements for a post-Kyoto agreement to be hammered out at the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen 2009.
APEC groups together Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.
The forum's economies account for 56 percent of the world's GDP and cover 41 percent of the world's population.

09/02/2007 02:59 GMT