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."