Friday, July 29, 2005

Nature: Climate pact panned as diversionary tactic

On 28 July, Australia, China, India, South Korea, Japan and the United States announced that they had signed an independent pact to help tackle climate change. But experts have criticized them for not adopting targets for emission reductions.
The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which promotes using new technologies to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, has been worked out in secret by the parties involved, so its announcement has come as something of a surprise.
Climate-policy experts say that although the aims of the pact are worthwhile, it contains no new financial commitments or targets. Australia and the United States are the only two developed nations not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and experts say the pact is likely to be used by them to deflect pressure to accept future versions of the protocol.

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