Pact is helping big business expand into Asia

At the inaugural meeting in Sidney of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the US energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, suggested that the private sector solves the problem. Environmentalists say this is as an abdication of responsibility by the US government.

According to the BBC's environment correspondent Richard Black in Sidney "private companies produce greenhouse gases and private companies will clean them up said Bodman."

The partnership aims to reduce carbon emission by developing clean energy technologies and distributing them from the richer members - Australia, the US and Japan - to the poorer ones China, India, and South Korea.

Critics maintain emissions won't come down without Kyoto Protocol style targets and timetables and say the pact is really aimed at helping big western companies expand into Asia.

The UK Green Party has labeled the partnership "environmental villains". The party's principal speaker, Keith Taylor says: "The alliance's determination to avoid signing up to binding targets and timetables is evidence that the Partnership refuses to back up its rhetoric with substance, and is unlikely to make any significant progress on this urgent issue.

"By refusing to sign up to the Kyoto Treaty, the US and Australia have come into major conflict with the global climate change lobby as it continues to gain momentum at this crucial time. The Asia-Pacific Partnership is an attempt to combat their image as the villains of environmental responsibility while protecting their economic interests.

"Prioritising economic growth is detrimental to the effective tackling of increasing carbon emissions - it places the onus on profit, and fails to recognise public and corporate responsibility to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

"The focus on new technologies as quick-fixes diverts investment from existing clean energy generation technologies including wind and solar power. The inclusion of nuclear energy is also deeply disturbing as it hints at a widespread increase in nuclear power stations, a highly dangerous and costly form of energy generation.

The UK Green Party has long called for universal adoption of the Contraction & Convergence model, the science based framework developed by the Global Commons Institute. This involves contracting global carbon emissions to a safe level, while ensuring that rich and poor countries gradually converge at a fair level of per capita carbon emissions.

C & C allows developing countries to continue their industrial development to raise living standards while compelling developed countries such as the US and Australia to recognise that they have a greater responsibility to reduce carbon emissions and by a greater extent than developing countries.