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Asia-Pacific leaders concede no hope for Copenhagen deal
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Updated 1 hour 33 minutes ago

Asia-Pacific leaders representing about half the world's economy have conceded there will be no legally binding deal at the Copenhagen summit in just over twenty days' time.

And after meeting in Singapore, they dropped specific greenhouse gas targets for APEC countries in their own final statement.

We begin our wrap of the weekend's disappointing news with this response by New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key.

Presenter: Campbell Cooney and Linda Mottram
Speaker: John Key, New Zealand Prime Minister; Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's Prime Minister; Najib Razak, Malaysia's Prime Minister; Kevin Rudd, Australia's Prime Minister; Barack Obama, United States President; Simon Crean, Australia's Trade Minister; Anote Tong, Kiribati President

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KEY: There's now recognition there will be no legal binding treaty signed at Copenhagen - its not going to happen. Really what its going to mean is that ovet the next year or two leaders are going to have to sit down, countries are going to have to sit down and negotiate a binding set of committments and that's going to have its own set of challenges.

COONEY: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. The leaders were buoyed by Barack Obama's presence, and his major weekend speech on US-Asia relations, but the climate change outcome points to almost certain doom at Copenhagen.

From Singapore, Linda Mottram filed this report.

MOTTRAM: The APEC leaders final statement, not usually noted for controversy, became the source of intense interest when it appeared lacking specific greenhouse emissions targets that had been included in an earlier draft. APEC host, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, angrily denied the targets - of 50 per cent cuts from 1990 levels by 2050 - had been dropped.

LEE: We didn't drop the emissions, we negotiated a draft, we settled on a text. I do not know the ins and the outs, but this is not an occasion for negotiating climate change.

MOTTRAM: The issue was live in part because of the proximity of the faltering Copenhagen climate change summit, and because the opportunities presented by climate change have emerged at the core of the APEC leaders' strategy to try to shore up their fragile recovery from the world's worst financial and economic crisis in decades. Leader after Pacific rim leader has spoken at APEC of the need for new forms of growth, and the emerging green economy has been central. Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak.

NAJIB: Renewable energy is one of the new sources of growth, I think that's been recognised around the world. One of the things I did when I took over last April was create a ministry of green technology. Green energy, green technology, renewable energy will be part and parcel of our new economic model.

MOTTRAM: There was a merging of two vital agendas - how to build a sustainable recovery in a new world -post-crisis, and how to tackle climate change. The issue was so pressing Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Mexico's President Felipe Calderon co-hosted a climate change breakfast on the margins of APEC. Most APEC leaders, including President's Barack Obama and Hu Jintao attended. Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen even flew into Singapore at short notice to attend. Speaking after the breakfast, Kevin Rudd summed up the general view of the Copenhagen process.

RUDD: Leaders in their interventions around the table were clear in their view that the current officials-led process is running into all sorts of difficulties, and therefore it is time for leaders politically to step in. That was the purpose of our gathering this morning. The tone and content of the meeting was strongly positive.

MOTTRAM: APEC leaders had accepted that the only way forward for Copenhagen was to set a two-stage process, with the aim of getting a legally binding deal between nations further down the track, because there wouldn't be one at the meeting in just over twenty days time.

On the more traditional APEC issue of trade, President Obama had fuelled some optimism among Asia-Pacific leaders with his key foreign policy speech in Japan just before he arrived in Singapore. Recommitting the US to Asia, after perceived drift during the Bush administration, President Obama also pledged Washington would join an important and ambitious free trade initiative - the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

OBAMA: In addition to our bilateral relations, we also believe that the growth of multilateral organisations can advance the security and prosperity of this region. I know that the United States has been disengaged from many of these organisations in recent years. So let me be clear - those days are past.

MOTTRAM: Australia says it's a breakthrough, given the sheer weight of the US economy, though the partnership's planned scope is bound to have pitfalls. Trade minister Simon Crean.

CREAN: I'm not trying to underestimate the difficulties going forwardbut the advanced will only be made if the political will is there to try and address those difficulties. And today's committment by the US is a clear statement that they have such political will, and we welcome it.

MOTTRAM: On the sidelines of APEC there was also a US-ASEAN summit, and a range of negotiations and discussions on vital issues from Russia-US nuclear disarmament plans, Iran's nuclear program, a prospective cross-straits economic deal between China and Taiwan, and difficult talks on issues such as Burma and regional people smuggling. The leaders' posed in the obligatory summit shirt this year tastefully Chinese-inspired and with subtle colour and pattern. Twenty years on APEC has evolved and attracts leaders from the greatest nations and some of the smallest. Its fate though is tied to the large number of thoughts in the grouping on what the so-called regional architecture should look like in future.

COONEY: Linda Mottram there, reporting from the APEC summit in Singapore.

Well earlier we heard from New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key expressing his disappointment at the lack of committment and will shown by APEC Leaders towards an emissions target. That disappointment is likely to be even greater in Pacific Island nations, whose leaders have said repeatedly that they expect the developed world to do their bit.

At the UN General Assembly, every Pacific leader raised climate change in their address. One of the most passionate calls came from the President of Kiribati Anote Tong. Let's hear just a bit of what he said.

TONG: Let us not waste any more time on diplomatic talk, language, drafting and ammendments, posturing and empty platitudes. We know what has to be done. It's been called many things - a new world order, a grand bargain, a new green deal. But Copenhagen gives us the opportunity to enter into a global compact for action on climate change between developed and developing countries north and south, east and west. This might be our last chance. If we don't act now, who the hell is going to do it?

COONEY: Kiribati President Anote Tong at the UN in September.