APEC leaders skirt controversial issues

MANILA, Philippines - Skirting thorny issues, top Asia-Pacific leaders yesterday tackled regional trade, security, and the environment before the business community ahead of their meetings in Manila today.

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO summit, US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla skipped discussing controversial topics such as the territorial spat over the West Philippine Sea and South China Sea and Russian intervention in Syria.

The leader of the world’s largest economy, Obama put forward the need for a new international climate change framework to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expired in 2012 without meeting its goals.

He called on participants in the forthcoming Conference of Parties in Paris to craft an “ambitious framework to protect the only planet that we have” and come out with an “outcome we are all proud of.”

“An agreement will serve as a signal to the private sector to go all in renewable energy technologies,” Obama said, noting that the US, which did not sign the Kyoto pact, now leads the world in green investments.

“No nation is immune to the consequences of a changing climate, although no region has more at stake in meeting these challenges than the Asia-Pacific region,” he added. 

Obama called on businesses to allot capital to renewable energy, saying the idea that such move contradicts business profits is “outdated.” –With Janvic Mateo, Pia Lee-Brago