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Developing countries balk at greenhouse gas proposal

Developing countries led by China and Southeast Asian states are resisting efforts by the US and Australia to forge a new framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, diplomats said yesterday.

Sharp disagreements over a statement on climate change to be issued at the APEC summit have highlighted the divisions, the diplomats said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has put climate change high on the summit's agenda, proposing a new approach that would veer away from the Kyoto Protocol, the main international treaty on climate change.

The Kyoto Accord expires in 2012 and the APEC summit is one of a series of meetings at which plans for a post-Kyoto agreement on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions behind global warming are being discussed.

Australia and the US rejected Kyoto on the grounds that it did not commit developing countries -- such as China and India -- to the same sort of emissions cuts as industrialized countries.

Howard has proposed a "new template" after 2012 calling on developing nations to do more to cut their own emissions.

This has met with robust opposition from developing states, which accuse Australia of undermining the Kyoto Accord and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

An Indonesian diplomat, who asked not to be named, said Australia should allow the UNFCC to take the lead in planning strategies for the post-Kyoto world.

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