CLIMATE negotiators are still scratching their heads about the significance of a pact signed by the US, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea last week.
The pact will encourage the transfer of 鈥渃lean鈥� energy technologies to developing countries. Does that represent 鈥渁 complement to Kyoto鈥�, as the US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick claimed? Is it, as Australia鈥檚 prime minister John Howard argued, a 鈥渇airer鈥� alternative to the Kyoto protocol, because it has no mandatory controls on the greenhouse gas emissions of some countries and not others? Or is it, as environmentalists fear, a US scheme to wreck the protocol?
鈥淧roposals dropped from the US energy bill include finding ways to cut oil demand鈥�
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Meanwhile, the long-awaited energy bill that the US Senate approved on 29 July suggests a flimsy commitment by the US government to cutting greenhouse emissions. The bill offers $14 billion in tax breaks and other incentives over the next decade. Of this, $5 billion will go to improved energy efficiency and renewable energy sources such as wind and hydroelectric power, while $9 billion will go to the fossil-fuel industry. Proposals dropped from the completed bill included finding ways to cut US oil demand, setting standards to improve the efficiency of SUVs and requiring power stations to generate one-tenth of their power from renewable sources.
