Groups to stage climate protest

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GREEN groups are preparing to protest outside a climate-change conference in Sydney, arguing the forum will do nothing to halt global warming. But environmentalists insist their protests will be peaceful and they will not blockade the city hotel where the international conference is due to take place this week.

Prime Minister John Howard will host the first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which begins in Sydney on Wednesday. Attending nations - Australia, the US, Japan, South Korea, China and India - last year pledged to form a new climate initiative to bypass perceived problems in the Kyoto Protocol. The US and Australia, which are among the major polluting nations, have refused to sign the protocol. The six nations account for almost half the world's population, energy and economic output, with China and India alone responsible for generating 20 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has pulled out of the conference, as well as security talks with Australia this week, due to worries over the Middle East caused by the poor health of Israeli leader Ariel Sharon. The Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales today said hundreds of demonstrators would protest outside the climate-change conference, but pledged the action would be peaceful. "We're expecting maybe a couple of hundred (protesters)," spokeswoman Mithra Cox said."We've been speaking to the police about it and we're not intending to blockade the Four Seasons Hotel. We'll just be protesting peacefully." There were ugly scenes on Sydney streets in August when 1000 anti-globalisation protesters descended on the Forbes conference at the Sydney Opera House, sparking clashes with police.

Nature Conservation Council director Cate Faehrmann today said the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate was intended to scuttle the expansion of renewable energy sources. "The talks are intended to divert attention away from solutions like renewable energy in favour of non-binding targets using technologies that don't even exist yet," she said. "Renewable energy such as solar, wave and wind power is here and we know it works. "The so-called Asia-Pacific Partnership is essentially a coal pact that allows Australia to continue to do next to nothing to stop climate change."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17768027%255E1702,00.html

[Dead_Parrot]

1. NZ Dominion Post...

...described it as "a trade show for fossil fuels". Sounds about right, then...