By Howard Cincotta, State Department writer

Washington, DC, November 13 - The roads to clean energy, a better environment, and sustainable development are not always the obvious ones. Consider these efforts to:

• Study that most ubiquitous of building material--cement--to increase efficiency and lower emissions in its manufacture and use.
• Design a "gasified biomass-fueled engine" that provides power to rural populations of hundreds of millions.
• Capture the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), and injecting it into underground geologic formations.
• Test advanced technologies for Earth's most abundant fossil fuel--coal--and our most common renewable energy source--the sun.

A New Kind of Partnership

These are all examples of the nearly 100 projects now being undertaken by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) to address the interrelated challenges of air pollution, energy security, economic development, and climate change.  (See the APP fact sheet and Facts at a Glance)

International cooperation to address global problems is hardly a new concept, but the APP works in innovative ways to engage governments, private industry, and research institutions from six nations: Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Collectively, these nations comprise roughly half the world's population and more than half of its economic activity and energy use.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership is not the product of lengthy treaty negotiations, but a voluntary, public-private partnership organized to address a specific, results-oriented agenda dealing with the multiple challenges of clean energy, reductions in the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions as measured against economic growth, and sustainable economic development.

The APP Approach

The Partnership's wide-ranging yet highly specific agenda is reflected in the work of its eight task forces: (1) Aluminum, (2) Buildings and Appliances, (3) Cement, (4) Cleaner Fossil Energy, (5) Coal Mining, (6) Power Generation and Transmission, (7) Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation, and (8) Steel.

The senior U.S. climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, describes the APP's work this way: "Through these projects, the Partnership will promote ways to make power plants run more efficiently; identify opportunities to reduce powerful non-carbon-dioxide gas emissions in aluminum processes; advance deployment of solar power, hydro, and other renewable technologies; work to reduce air emissions from coal mining, cement, and steel production; construct greener buildings; and manufacture more energy-efficient appliances."

Watson stresses that, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates specific emission reductions, U.S. climate change policy focuses on a range of technology initiatives and partnerships based on sustainable and clean energy development.

With minimal new investments and operational changes, Watson says, power plants in India could raise efficiency 2 percent, saving millions of tons of greenhouse gas each year.

The APP Task Force on Buildings and Appliances, for example, plans to demonstrate how a remarkable 10%-15% energy reduction in existing buildings can be achieved for very low costs, or for no cost at all.

By normal international standards, the Asia-Pacific Partnership has been moving at warp speed. The six members launched the APP at a ministerial meeting in Sydney, Australia, in January 2006. An implementation committee next convened in Berkeley, California, in April, with 300 representatives of government, industry, and research institutions to formulate the work plans of the eight task forces. In October, the APP endorsed a list of 98 projects at a conference in Jeju, Korea.  And, in November Australian Prime Minister John Howard has commented: "What makes me enthusiastic about this Partnership is that it's about practical achievement, not talk."

Efficient and Alternative Energies

At a conference of energy executives and engineers in Columbus, Ohio, in October 2006, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky said, "This international gathering exemplifies the leadership role that businesses can play in identifying innovative opportunities for cleaner and more efficient economic growth."

Richard Brent, a vice president of Solar Turbines, owned by Caterpillar, Inc., agrees that the Partnership is an important opportunity to cooperate on market-driven, clean energy technologies.

 "The APP approach has all the right elements to make a difference," says Brent, a member of the Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation Task Force, citing the example of Caterpillar engines that are being used to reuse methane gas from coal mines in China. Brent estimates that, when completed, his task force's projects alone will produce savings of 1.2 million tons of CO2-equivalent annually.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership, according to Under Secretary Dobriansky, "is the most significant public-private partnership that we have established at the international level" full text.