APEC talks end with climate change deals

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit concluded this weekend with two initiatives to improve energy efficiency and planting more trees, AP reported. Member countries pledged to increase energy efficiency by 25% by 2030 and increase forest areas in the region by at least 50 million acres by 2020. This was the first occasion China agreed to targets for developing and developed countries, "an enormous diplomatic breakthrough," according Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who attended the summit. President Hu Jintao agreed to the climate-change pact, but maintained that developed countries should take the lead in cutting emissions and help developing countries clean up. Unlike the UN-backed Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012, the summit did not set targets for emissions reductions, though it may carry weight in upcoming talks in Washington, New York and Indonesia for a new post-Kyoto blueprint.