The six partners in what some have called the "post-Kyoto" initiative include four of the world's biggest coal miners -- Australia, China, the US and India -- and the ambition of the new grouping is to install technologies around the region that will reduce the polluting power of coal.
It is this that has led some to scoff at what was proposed in Vientiane.
Said Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens in Australia's parliament: "This is all about taxpayers' money being diverted from developing clean renewable technologies to try to make burning coal less dirty."
Howard and his ministers take another tack. They argue that they have done the world a huge service by engaging China and India in efforts to stem climate change. Kyoto, they say, failed in that it didn't demand effort from rich and poor alike.
"The real answer to global emission reduction is engaging China and India and the big emitters that don't have big commitments under Kyoto," Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said.
He trumpeted the new initiative, which has managed to rope in the two biggest developing-country emitters, as a triumph in a global effort at "finding ways to produce the technology that can see energy use go up but emissions go down."
Howard has been careful not to traduce the 140 countries, including India, China, Japan and South Korea, that embraced the Kyoto process.
Kyoto stop-outs Australia and the US have been labelled global vandals for not picking up their share of the burden in cutting emissions. Canberra will be hoping that through the new initiative it will be seen as doing something positive to tackle the issue of climate change.
The meeting in Adelaide later this year will be crucial in testing the commitment of the new partners. What analysts will be looking for is a raft of cash commitments to develop technologies for filtering emissions and burying the carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power stations. These technologies are so far no more than experimental.
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