(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-08 06:25

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) economies on Friday reached agreement on a joint statement on global warming, overcoming bickering between rich and poor nations about whether to include targets on emissions, two Asian officials said.

Experts from the 21 APEC members approved the wording of a final draft statement on climate change that would be handed to leaders at their summit starting Saturday, the officials said.

The agreement will have some major developing nations commit to quantifiable goals to tackle climate change.

One official involved in the talks, Indonesia's Salman Al-Farisi, said the draft statement included agreement on setting an "energy intensity" reducing target - a major concession by poorer nations that had earlier refused to consider including any quantifiable goals.

The target was for all 21 APEC members to work toward a 25 percent reduction of energy intensity by 2030, said a Southeast Asian officials involved in the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

In return for the reduction target, developed countries have accepted the inclusion of recognition of the UN principle that poorer nations had fewer responsibilities to cut carbon emissions that developed ones, officials said.

Bush has bad day

US President George W. Bush had a bad day at the Sydney Opera House.

He'd only reached the third sentence of Friday's speech to business leaders, on the sidelines of the APEC forum, when he committed his first gaffe.

"Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Oops. That would be APEC, the annual meeting of leaders from 21 Pacific Rim members, not OPEC, the cartel of 12 major oil producers.

Bush quickly corrected himself. "APEC summit," he said forcefully, joking that Howard had invited him to the OPEC summit next year (for the record, an impossibility, since neither Australia nor the US are OPEC members).

The president's next goof went uncorrected - by him anyway. Talking about Howard's visit to Iraq last year to thank his country's soldiers serving there, Bush called them "Austrian troops."

Then, speech done, Bush confidently headed out - the wrong way.

He strode away from the lectern on a path that would have sent him over a steep drop. Howard and others redirected the president to center stage, where there were steps leading down to the floor of the theater.

Agencies

(China Daily 09/08/2007 page10)