Singapore - Asian leaders on Wednesday agreed on the need for long-term goals to cut global emissions and develop clean energy resources to combat devastating impacts of global warming ahead of a crucial meeting in Indonesia next month. However, no actual emission-reduction targets were set in the Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment issued by the leaders of 16 countries at the end of the East Asian Summit in Singapore.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said targets will be discussed in Bali in December, when negotiations for a post-2012 agreement would be launched.
"This is a declaration of intent, it's not a negotiated treaty of what we are actually going to do to restrict ourselves," he told a press conference at the end of the summit.
Lee added that it was "very difficult for any group of countries ... to make a hard, binding commitment to restrict ourselves" ahead of negotiations for a post-Kyoto Protocol agreement.
In the declaration, the leaders said they agreed to "commit to the common goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations in the long run, at a level that would prevent dangerous ... interference with the climate system."
They also "support the work to achieve a common understanding on a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal to pave the way for a more effective post-2012 international arrangement."
The declaration was signed by leaders from the 10 Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar - as well as India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the East Asian Summit declaration will pave the way for "easier" discussions in the Bali meeting with such major developing countries China and India agreeing to the need to take action.
"I'm optimistic that this climate change declaration will make the Bali meeting easier than it would have otherwise been," he said. "Of course to be realistic about it, these negotiations are going to take a couple of years."
He noted that it was important that China and India agree that developing countries must also start "taking action eventually to stabilize and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is central to a successful meeting in Bali later this year."
"I think there is a turning of the tide in terms of China and India's positions on climate change," he added.
But Lee noted that India's "immediate priority is economic development."
He said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "explained that his first priority is economic growth and that in his view, you have to look at this on a per person basis."
"On a per person basis, India's emissions are much smaller than developed countries," Lee said, quoting Singh. "He's willing to have a cap equal to the cap for the developed countries. And that if developed countries come down, he will come down with them."
In the declaration, the leaders also agreed to work "towards achieving a regional aspiration goal of a reduction in energy intensity," the formulation of voluntary energy efficiency goals by 2009, and the development and use of civilian nuclear power.
