The United States has received a lot of attention for the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (or AP6, named for the participants -- the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, and India). The goal of the AP6, as framed by the participating countries, is to develop clean power generation technologies to address climate change, energy security, and air pollution through the use of public-private collaboration. As of early March 2006, the AP6 countries have established eight public-private task forces in the areas of cleaner fossil energy; renewable energy and distributed generation; power generation and transmission; steel; aluminum; cement; coal mining; and buildings and appliances. Given the United States' view of the Kyoto Protocol, some observers have been trying to figure out whether the AP6 is really taking a different approach to climate change mitigation efforts, or whether it simply reflects an attempt to derail the Kyoto Protocol.

To put both the Kyoto Protocol and the AP6 into perspective, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are growing rapidly, and could triple by 2050. The Kyoto Protocol in its current form slows this growth only slightly. But this isn't the fault of the Kyoto Protocol’s approach, namely reliance on a cap-and-trade program rather than explicit technology incentives. Indeed, one of the purposes of a cap-and-trade program is to help generate a market signal that in turn drives technology development. But the Protocol’s relatively modest targets and limited timeframe (only extending to 2012 at this point) clearly undercut its ability to deliver the kind of market signal technology developers are looking for.

There’s no question, therefore, that the Protocol needs help. The AP6, with its focus on technology development and deployment, could provide some of this help. What’s not at all clear is how the AP6 intends to really provide incentives for technologies to develop much more quickly -- and get deployed much more widely -- than otherwise would occur. As a "non-binding" compact, how will the AP6 deliver the market signal that technology developers need?

With the rapid growth in global GHG emissions, any hope of stabilizing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere will require a wide-ranging portfolio of policies and measures. Both emissions trading and technology incentives are important potential elements of such a portfolio. Arguing about whether one approach is better than another is self-defeating. We need both of them, as well as many more options. That said, I sincerely hope that AP6 doesn’t turn out to have been intended primarily to undercut the Kyoto Protocol. We can’t afford that kind of cynicism for such an important global problem.

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Dr. Mark C. Trexler has more than 25 years of energy and environmental experience, and has focused on global climate change since joining the World Resources Institute in 1988. He is now president of Trexler Climate + Energy Services, which provides strategic, market, and project services to clients around the world.