APEC finance ministers to talk climate change, energy

COOLUM (AFP) - APEC finance ministers will discuss how the Asia-Pacific region can deal with climate change while also meeting its ever-expanding energy needs at a gathering in Australia beginning Thursday.

Finance ministers from the 21 countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will hold a two-day meeting in the Queensland resort town of Coolum to make policy recommendations ahead of an APEC leaders' summit in Sydney in September.

Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, who is hosting the event, said the most important challenge facing the meeting was finding a model acceptable to all that would allow the region to deal with climate change.

"We (APEC) have the world's biggest emitters -- China and the United States. To have that discussion with them and to see if we can get an agreement on principles for managing carbon emissions and cooperation across the world's major economies would be a really good step forward," he said.

He added another major topic would be energy security, asking: "How do developing countries such as China secure the energy which they'll need to drive their growth forward in the decades that lie ahead?"

An Australian Treasury briefing on the Coolum meeting said the agenda would include discussion on how the region could meet critical energy infrastructure needs estimated at seven trillion US dollars over the next 30 years.

"If this investment does not occur, the resulting imbalance between energy demand and supply is likely to result in higher and more volatile energy prices," it said.

Costello denied the absence of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson detracted from the importance of the meeting, saying there would be no shortage of financial heavyweights.

"We have got the new president of the World Bank, Bob Zoellick, representatives of the Asian Development Bank, the IMF," Costello said.

"Compared to other APEC finance ministers' meetings, this is an extremely high level of ministerial involvement, and I think it will be a very significant meeting."

Other ministers expected to attend are Japan's Koji Omi, China's Jin Renqing, New Zealand's Michael Cullen and Canada's James Flaherty.

US Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt will appear on Paulson's behalf.

Agreements from the meeting will be passed on to the APEC leaders' meeting in Sydney in September.

Security at the Coolum meeting is expected to be tight, with police keen to avoid any repeat of the clashes with protestors that marred a G20 meeting held in Melbourne last November.

The 21 economies that make up APEC -- and account for a third of the world's population -- are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.