Announcing the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development
Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick
Vientiane, Laos
July 28, 2005
Also Participating:
Australia: Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister
China: Liu Yongxing, Ambassador to Laos
India: Raoul Inderjit Singh, Union Minister of State for External Affairs
Japan: Shinichi Nishimiya, Deputy Director General, Asian-ASEAN Department
Republic of Korea: Ban Ki Moon, Foreign Minister
10:30 a.m. (Local)
DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK: Thank you very much Minister Downer. Let me start by thanking all of you for joining us
today. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to be here with my five colleagues for the release of this vision
statement on a new partnership on clean development and climate. As my colleagues have emphasized, we view this as a
complement, not an alternative, to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Treaty. I supervised
the U.S. delegation in 1991 and '92 when we created the U.N. convention and it was exactly this type of idea that we
hope that the convention's flexibility will enable us to pursue because it is absolutely vital to bring developed and
developing countries together on these topics.
As Minister Downer mentioned, the six countries at this table represent over half of the world's economy, population,
energy use, also green house gas emissions. From the experience that I had in the past four years working with the World
Trade Organization, it is very clear to me that it is vital to be able to build on mutual interests of developed and
developing countries together if one is going to take on global challenges and in doing that one has to be careful to
listen to one's developing country counterparts to have a sense of how one can develop mutual interests if one is going
to be able to solve a problem.
So, this vision statement begins by recognizing those mutual interests. It focuses on the interests of energy, both
energy security, but also energy efficiency. It focuses on the vital role of energy in development and it also focuses
on the issues of climate change. It opens up the possibilities for developing, deploying, and transferring cleaner, more
efficient technologies. There are some that are ready to go now, dealing with clean coal, liquid natural gas, methane
capture and use, renewable fuels, but there's also a longer term agenda, in terms of reducing green house gas
intensities, topics such as hydrogen, fusion, advanced biotechnology, and nanotechnology. So I want to thank our
colleagues from Australia in particular for agreeing to host the ministerial later this year at beautiful Adelaide,
which I had an opportunity to visit with the minister in the late 90's. I think the key is the flexibility that this
vision outlines because our goal here is to try to complement other agreements and activities with practical solutions
to problems. I think others and we will need networks and partnerships like this one so we can try to customize work on
issues of energy security and efficiency and also green house gas emissions. Thank you.
QUESTION: (Amy Kasmin, Financial Times): How much money is being committed to carry out these activities? What are the
obstacles now to the deployment and diffusion of innovative technologies in this area?
DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK: Amy, just to briefly answer your first part, if my memory serves I think the United States
devotes over 5 billion dollars a year to climate change issues and a large part of that is technology development.
There's also information that goes into scientific analysis and research. But this partnership is a good example that
while the United States is devoting a very large sum to that, we have to use a series of networks to be able to expand
the availability of that knowledge and transfer it into practical forms. So as to go to your second question, part of
this can be market mechanisms, it depends on the pricing. Some of this depends on the availability of business networks
to be able to bring the products and make them available. But part of it is also simply the knowledge transfer, which
can happen in scientific circles, can happen in academic circles. But one key part about bringing developed and
developing countries together is that I think that some of the developed countries that have put a lot of energy into
this, and I know Japan has made huge investments as well, for us to learn how to be able to expand the use of this
technology we have to listen to our developing country colleagues about some of their particular problems. India and
China in particular both have huge development challenges of which energy is a critical component, so part of the nature
of this partnership is not just for us to roll out technology; its also for them to get a better understanding of some
of the challenges they face, some of their development plans, and try to see how we can connect that together in an
effective network.
QUESTION: (AP): If the commitment is nonbinding, how do we expect to fulfill this, and you said that it's a partnership
and not an alternate, that it will complement and won't be an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. How will it be a
complement when you're not in the Kyoto Protocol yourselves?
DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK: Just briefly, I agree with what Alexander said, is that as for your first question, I think
the logic of this group is that we're going to be more effective in dealing with these combined challenges on energy,
the environment, climate change, if we do so in a way that takes account of mutual interests and incentives. We have
some major development issues here related to energy and again I just draw my development experience on the trade side.
One can't just command other parties to do things. You can try, but it's not going to be effective, so you need to try
to develop interests and incentives. The United States is a member of the global climate convention, as I mentioned, the
agreement that was done in '92. We've stated our differences with the Kyoto Treaty, but just to give you a sense of our
own commitment to this overall process, the United States under the Bush Administration has reduced carbon dioxide
emissions by 0.3% in the first three years and just to set a contrast, the carbon dioxide emissions in all the other G-8
countries increased during this period. For example the EU of 15 by 3.6%, the EU of 25 by 3.4%, so we're committed to
trying to address this effort. We think that there's a better way to do it than the requirements of the Kyoto Treaty,
but we respect those who have pledged to those requirements and we understand their interest in trying to achieve them.
Let me give you a specific example that I touched on. One of the ideas that we've been trying to develop is a
methane-to-markets initiative. I referred to CO2 emissions, but obviously the second most frequent green house gas
emission is methane. There are some very interesting possibilities here to use methane to help meet countries' energy
needs, particularly developing countries' needs and that would otherwise be a gas that would go and contribute to the
overall increase in global climate change. So it's a good example of trying to find a win-win combination of meeting
energy needs but also dealing with the climate possibility. The clean coal technology, if you look at China's energy
development, it's still very, very dependent on coal. China's economic growth is important for reducing poverty,
development, its important for the growth of the world as well as the region. But we've discovered some very strong
interest on the Chinese side in clean coal technology development. So this is an example of, at least we believe, ways
in which this activity can compliment commitments that others have made but also further our common interests in trying
to intersect the energy issues with development issues with climate change issues.
2005/732
Released on July 28, 2005