Nuclear, ethanol on Bush-Howard agenda

Anne Davies and Sarah Smiles, August 27, The Age

US PRESIDENT George Bush will invite Australia to be part of two initiatives aimed at guaranteeing future energy supplies: his global nuclear partnership and an initiative to produce ethanol from wild grasses.

Both issues will be raised by Mr Bush at bilateral talks ahead of the APEC meeting next week, senior officials said.

Prime Minister John Howard will today outline his objectives for APEC in an address to the Lowy Institute. The timing of the September 8-9 meeting is politically important — the election could be announced as early as a week or fortnight later.

The US, through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, is already driving a major research effort to develop a new generation of fast-cycle reactors that would produce far less hazardous waste than conventional nuclear reactors. The group includes many countries involved in the nuclear fuel cycle, including Russia, China and France.

Its broader aim is to eventually secure the entire fuel cycle and confine production and reprocessing to members of the group, thus reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation.

Australia and Canada, the world's largest uranium producers, have so far stalled on joining because of domestic concerns about obligations to take back nuclear waste and store it.

They have also been concerned about being locked out of a core group inside the partnership that is allowed to process uranium, say diplomatic sources.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mr Howard are likely to compare notes in a bilateral meeting around APEC.

A senior official said last week that the US would not pressure Australia to take back nuclear waste if it joined the group.

"We want Australia to be part of the research effort. It doesn't mean Australia would have to take back nuclear waste," the official said. Documents reveal that the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Energy have worked on a bilateral nuclear partnership with the US, which would see closer research ties and more involvement by Australia.

Hans Blix, the head of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission who is visiting Melbourne, said there were "attractive features" in the partnership initiative, which aims to reduce proliferation by confining uranium production to a small group of countries.

Yet he said it remains a "hypothetical" plan and noted that the US has been averse to taking back fuel.

"GNEP is pretty much far in the future, there are many things that need to be clarified and worked out before they can get to such a scheme. It presupposes new types of reactors … the type of reactors we don't have yet," Dr Blix told The Age.

Ethanol will also be a major area of discussion. The US has announced a program to boost ethanol production to 35 billion gallons by 2017, in a bid to reduce its dependence on foreign oil by 20 per cent.

Also see related article in Sydney Morning Herald.

No change on climate at APEC: envoy

Katharine Murphy, August 8, The Age

PRIME Minister John Howard's hand-picked climate change envoy says APEC is unlikely to deliver big breakthroughs on global warming.

And he says the United States will not accept emissions trading until there is a new president.

Former Macquarie Bank deputy chairman Mark Johnson says APEC economies were "not at a level yet where there is a common aspiration" about how to reduce the risks of global warming.

"There will certainly be no targets (agreed in September). There's not that degree of commonality," Mr Johnson said in an interview in Canberra on Tuesday.

He said national environmental reforms now being considered by the US Congress were unlikely to yield change "until the next president".

"I think it will take a long time to get to emissions trading in the United States," he said.

But Mr Johnson said next month's meeting of APEC leaders in Sydney could deliver business some much-needed priorities in areas such as improving energy efficiency and support for new emissions reduction technology.

Mr Johnson met Mr Howard privately in Canberra late yesterday to outline business priorities for the APEC meeting.

Achieving progress on climate change and energy security is number one on the business wish list.

Mr Johnson was appointed by Mr Howard in June in a special outreach role to encourage regional economies to come up with a co-operative approach to climate change.

He is also chairman of APEC's high-powered business advisory council. In a new report to APEC leaders handed to Mr Howard yesterday, the business delegation calls for September to deliver transparent rules and incentives to deal with the challenges of global warming and energy security, and a bolder approach to free trade and investment liberalisation.

The wish list also flags business support for significant changes to allow the free movements of labour across APEC members.

Business is preparing a push to allow skilled labour and guest workers from countries such as Mexico and the Philippines freer movement into developed economies within APEC, to tackle looming changes in the labour market, including the retirement of the baby boomers.

Mr Howard has previously played up the importance of the APEC meeting for breakthroughs on climate change, but the focus of key international players, particularly the US, has shifted to a United Nations gathering in December, and a separate meeting of polluters being spearheaded by US President George Bush.

Mr Johnson said business did not expect APEC to "change its nature", but corporations in the member economies were looking for action from their political leaders across a range of fronts.

He said business would view the September gathering as a success if issues such as climate change were "elevated as a discussion item" and if economies could deliver principles on issues such as transparency of rules and regulations, and government incentives.

Trade is also a significant agenda item. Yesterday's brief to Mr Howard calls for APEC leaders to consider a free trade area for the Asia-Pacific region.