The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Climate – Help or Hindrance?
Kilaparti Ramakrishna , Deputy Director, Woods Hole Research Center

A group of countries adopted an “Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate” a month ago.  These countries include: Australia , China , India , Japan , Korea and the US .  Although the statement is explicit in saying that their goal is to be “consistent with and contribute to our efforts under the UNFCCC and will complement, but not replace, the Kyoto Protocol”, the spin, particularly from the US , is that they finally found a way to get around the “fatally flawed” Kyoto Protocol.  What I would like to do is try to analyze this partnership and place it in the context of the world community’s efforts to address global warming through the adoption of UNFCCC and its KP, but mostly look forward to the coming years where the pressure on developing countries to reduce the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions is going to increase