Greens warn of 'nonsense' Apec approach to climate

The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to push for binding targets on climate change at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Australia next month.

The draft of the Apec leaders' environment declaration was leaked to Greenpeace this week and has drawn criticism for not including binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions. Instead it calls on leaders to set goals.

Apec host Australia, with the United States, has so far refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, which carries binding emissions targets.

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the draft Apec document would undermine the Kyoto agreement, of which New Zealand is a party.

"Leading scientists are saying we have only a decade to turn around our rising emissions, or climate change may become unstoppable. The Prime Minister must stand up against the nonsense being proposed at Apec and hold out for binding targets and timetables for the sake of our children."

Ms Fitzsimons said Helen Clark should work alongside Japan and Canada, Apec partners which had both ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

She said other worrying factors in the draft declaration included targets being expressed as reductions in "energy intensity" - that is energy used per dollar of GDP, rather than in nominal terms.

That meant countries could reduce energy intensity while still producing more greenhouse gases than before.

The declaration also used 2005 as a baseline to measure emissions against rather than 1990, which was used in the Kyoto Protocol.

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