*EPF410 12/16/2004
Nations Pledge Cooperation on Clean Energy Development
(Forum held at climate-change conference in Argentina) (930)

By David Haskel
Washington File Special Correspondent

Buenos Aires, Argentina -- Despite their deep differences on how to approach the issue of climate change, the United States and nations such as China, India and Italy are reaffirming their pledges to work side by side and strengthen cooperation in the search for new, cleaner, energy sources and innovative methods for carbon dioxide capture, storage and sequestration.

The Kyoto Protocol -- an amendment to an the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that requires cuts in greenhouse gases linked to global warming -- is flawed, according to the Bush administration, because it exempts China, India, Brazil and other large, fast-growing economies from committing to emissions' restrictions.

However, the U.S. government is continuing to engage those and other developing and developed nations in a wide array of climate-related programs, officials said at a December 14 briefing in Buenos Aires, held on the sidelines of the 10th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.

Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky cited the diversity of U.S. partnerships at a panel on Innovative International Partnerships to Address Climate Change.

"Whether with the private sector, whether with other governments, whether with those countries that support and have embraced the Kyoto Protocol and those that have not embraced the Kyoto Protocol," the Bush administration has been vigorously forging deals to tackle the climate change issue, she said.

Dobriansky urged U.S. partners in environmental projects to redouble efforts to "work in collaboration with business and industry to develop solutions that harness the ingenuity of the private sector and enlist its long-term support."

SUPPORT FROM CHINA, INDIA, ITALY

Senior officials from China, India and Italy also participated in the side event in Argentina's capital and echoed the words of the U.S. envoy. They emphasized the importance of teaming up with the world's largest economy to promote the development and implementation of renewable forms of energy, advance carbon dioxide capture and storage, and improve energy efficiency.

Gao Feng, deputy head of China's departments of treaty and law, said too much emphasis has been put in the past on developing new technologies at the expense of promoting common policies to pave the way for enhanced international cooperation.

"To fight against climate change, we need policies as well as technologies. But this is something that we have not yet worked on. I really think the United States in this regard is leading the world," Gao said.

The Chinese representative said that rising crude oil prices were adding a new sense of urgency to the joint effort to develop alternative energy sources. "We know that oil prices are going up very rapidly, and as a developing country, we have to deal with that with a lot of pain. So we'd really like to use clean technology in the future to ease these kinds of difficulties."

Indian Vice Minister of Environment and Forests Prodipto Ghosh said New Delhi is currently working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE) and other U.S. agencies in an array of climate-related projects.

"They cover a wide field, ranging from R&D [research and development] for hydrogen energy, carbon sequestration, recovery and marketing of methane, energy-economy modeling, decentralized generation and distribution of power, energy efficiency, and earth observations," Ghosh said. "Both sides have contributed to and benefited from these activities."

India considers such joint projects consistent with the UNFCCC, whose preamble "calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries," the official added.

The Italian government is also relying heavily on its association with Washington in order to push the global environmental agenda forward, said Altero Matteoli, secretary of environment and land protection.

"Italy has strongly supported different initiatives in partnership that have been promoted by the United States. I'm mentioning the initiative for the promotion of a hydrogen economy, the forum for carbon sequestration and the methane partnership," he said.

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

The International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (IPHE) was established in 2003 to explore ways to speed up the transition to a hydrogen economy, explained Office of Climate Change Policy Director Stephen Eule from DOE.

Besides China, India and Italy, other U.S. partners in IPHE are Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Norway and Russia.

The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), also initiated in 2003 by the Bush administration, seeks to develop carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies as a means to achieve long-term stabilization of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. The program relies heavily on international cooperation and private sector participation.

Launched in early 2004, the Methane to Markets Partnership also seeks strong international and private sector involvement in order to reduce global methane emissions to enhance economic growth, promote energy security and improve the environment, EPA's Assistant Administrator Judith Ayres told the panel.

Another outstanding example of international cooperation, said NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, is the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. When Washington launched the program last year, 30 nations quickly joined. Now 54 nations and 34 international organizations are working to collect and share scientific observations of the planet that will help forecast future climate changes. "[GEOSS] will ... build a truly environmental observing system that will allow us to deal with many of the issues that we have in providing for sustainable development across all of the sectors of our economies."

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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