Briefing: U.S. Participation in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate

MR. ERELI: Greetings, everyone. We're pleased to have with us today Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Dr. Paula Dobriansky and the Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Mr. James Connaughton who are here to brief us on the U.S. participation in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate Change, which will be taking place next week in Sydney, Australia. This is a, I think, significant important initiative, which we have undertaken in partnership with five other countries. There's a brochure in the back for your reading pleasure on this issue.

We'll begin with Dr. Dobriansky who will have a couple of remarks by way of introduction and also Mr. Connaughton who will follow her and then we can open it up to your questions.

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: Good afternoon and thank you for coming. I'm pleased to be joined by the Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, to discuss the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. I'd also like to recognize Steve Eule over here who serves as the Director of Climate Change Policy at the Department of Energy. We're in partnership with both. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and his counterparts from Australia, China, India, Japan and Korea will launch the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate next week in Sydney, Australia.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate is a voluntary partnership among six major Asia-Pacific nations: Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States. And it's designed to accelerate the development and deployment of cleaner, more efficient technologies to meet national pollution reduction, energy security and climate change concerns and in a way that promote economic development and reduce poverty. Now, these six countries represent about half of the world's economy, population and energy use. The partnership will focus on development and commercialization of revolutionary energy technologies.

The partnership is framed by three elements to describe this. The first is integration: actions that address the interrelated challenges of promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, enhancing energy security and litigating air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions will be featured. This theory approach supports and stems from the Gleneagles plan of action endorsed last year by G-8 leaders.

Now, the second element is collaboration. All the partners agree that effective actions to address climate change and other development goals require cooperation between developed and developing countries and this is a significant aspect of the partnership. The countries in this partnership are highly diverse, but by working together on common projects, we can build outward to achieve significant progress for the region and for the world. This cooperation provides for the most constructive path forward for achieving our shared objectives.

Now, the third element is implementation. The partnership will work from the bottom up through public-private partnerships to build local capacity, improve efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities, power plants, mines and buildings. And in this context, we have identified eight key project areas for work: cleaner fossil energy; renewables and distributed generation; power generation and transmission; the fourth being aluminum; fifth, steel; cement; and then buildings and appliances; and finally, mining.

In this initiative, the private sector will play a critical role. We have invited business leaders from all the partner countries to join us at the lodge in Sydney and I look forward to hearing their insights and recommendations. We expect to commit significant financial resources to this new partnership and we'll work closely with the private sector and others to leverage our investment. This financial commitment would build upon and complement our nearly $3 billion annual investment to develop and deploy such cutting-edge energy technologies as hydrogen, carbon sequestration, nuclear energy, renewable fuels and electricity, and highly efficient appliances, vehicles and buildings.

Growing economies serve to improve the lives of people through jobs and new opportunities. With opportunity comes sustained growth, the promise of a better future and an enhanced capacity to protect the environment. Our partnership on clean development and climate will improve lives, it will foster prosperity and build a cleaner environment.

I'd like to invite our Chairman James Connaughton.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Thank you, Madame Under Secretary and good afternoon everybody.

I'll be very brief. I just want to supplement the comments with a few additional points of context. First, in addition to the G-8 leaders agreement that we need to look at these issues in an integrated way, we need to combine our development objectives with our concern for addressing harmful air pollution with our concern for reducing greenhouse gases. That's also been an emergent and now well understood view within the United States.

This partnership is moving forward consistent with the authority and the budget authority given to us in the new energy bill that the President signed last August where Senators Hagel and Pryor produced a bipartisan provision related to climate, calling for this kind of a partnership to be developed. So I'd encourage you to take a look at the objectives of that piece of legislation and our pleasure at moving forward as -- being able to move forward so rapidly in responding to that call.

In addition, I want to just emphasize this partnership has two P's that are important to me: one is private sector investment and the other is performance. Energy security -- they are very specific objectives that each of the nations in this partnership share. We define our objectives a little bit differently but they are objectives that we are going to be working together toward achieving.

The same is true when it comes to air pollution. Each of these countries has very specific regulatory commitments as well as other incentive-based and voluntary commitments in terms of cutting the air pollution that harms human health and natural resources today, such as sulfur dioxide, which can make life difficult for people like asthmatics, and also causes acid rain as well as nitrogen oxide, which is responsible for urban smog. So these are the pollutants that harm people and harm natural resources.

And then each of these countries actually has dedicated national commitments to reducing greenhouse gases associated with the longer-term issue of global climate change. We will be bringing those portfolios to the table. To give you an example, in the U.S. on air pollution, we have a very specific set of programs in place to cut the harmful air pollution from our power plants by nearly 70 percent. We will cut the pollution from our diesel engines -- our entire fleet of diesel engines -- by more than 90 percent. The other six partner countries are pursuing strategies along similar lines -- not necessarily as intensive as ours but along similar lines.

With respect to greenhouse gases, the President -- President Bush has committed the nation to reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of our economy by 18 percent. China, for example, has stated that a little bit differently. They are going to work to improve the energy efficiency of their coal-fired power plants by up to 20 percent by 2010.

So these are management strategies that are being pursued and we're going to look for opportunities to find common cause as well as common sources of trade in the goods, services and technologies that will enable us to meet those commitments. It's that kind of an approach, this combination of our portfolio strategies in the various sectors in which we hope to create new opportunities for trade and investment.

Importantly, this is a two-way street. This is us providing information, opportunity, looking for opportunities in countries like China, South Korea and India. By the same token, we will be looking for investment back here in the United States as we seek to achieve our own goals. Cutting air pollution, for example, from power plants, that alone is going to require more than $50 billion in installation of technologies, goods and services. And in our system of free market -- free global markets, anybody can compete to get that work. And so we're really looking at this as a two-way street to enhance and amplify the opportunity for the delivery of environmentally beneficial goods and services.

So, I'll end there.

MR. ERELI: If I could just ask you to identify yourself and your news organization if you've got a question.

Sue.

QUESTION: Sue Flemings from Reuters. Groups like Greenpeace have been very critical of this partnership involving the six countries. And their criticism largely focuses on the fact that there aren't any fixed timelines for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. I just wondered what your response was to their criticism. They say it's a kind of a wishy-washy agreement that's outside of Kyoto, that doesn't have the kind of punch and emphasis that's needed to tackle these very difficult problems.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Well, actually the central core of this initiative is to develop work plans that actually have real commitments behind them. The Kyoto process itself does not call for or initiate work plan development. Kyoto set a commitment for a small number of countries and did not impose obligations on most of the rest. And even for those who have obligations, Kyoto did not define how they're to be achieved.

So, I think the more appropriate way to look at this partnership is this partnership is about implementation of a broad range of objectives, not just the greenhouse gas equation. Now, in terms of performance -- the specific items, I think I gave you the U.S. examples -- we have a very specific target that's regulatory to cut harmful air pollution by nearly 70 percent from our power plants and that will occur in two phases in 2010 and in 2015. We have a very specific target to cut the sulfur from diesel fuel across the board in America by 99 percent in 2007. And then we will see nitrogen oxide cut by 90 percent starting in 2007 with new vehicles.

China, let me give you those two examples, China has a new regulatory commitment in their five-year plan to desulfurize 46 percent of their coal-fired power plants. They also have a management commitment on efficiency that I described. These are very specific, national commitments and strategies and we are then going to work to sew these together to see if we can find common strategies to successfully meet those objectives.

We find this to be a much more powerful way of engaging because it is tailored to the priorities that each country has set for themself in accordance with their own national circumstances and, therefore, does not reflect this one-size-fits-all concept. And as a result, though, it also bring to the fore a much broader array of actors who are interested in achieving those outcomes.

I could give you similar examples with South Korea or even Australia or Japan or India.

QUESTION: Is it your goal at the end of this meeting to maybe have more specific timelines, where the six of you would have a sort of a range of what you would like to achieve?

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Well, we will be bringing that to the table as the foundation for then the direction that will go into each of the task forces that we've set up in the sectors that Under Secretary Dobriansky identified. What's critical here is the government can provide this broad direction but it's the sectors themselves that are going to be able to tell us the most effective steps that are available to them in the near and midterm toward achieving them.

And then through this public-private task force operation, we'll be able to focus on some key priorities of common interest. Now, I'll give you one example. Methane recovery remains one of our most profitable and important opportunities to cut, not just the greenhouse gas but something that is a massive safety hazard. Methane is the thing that causes mines to explode and it's a big safety hazard. We have a lot of experience in America on how to do that, make our mines safer, reduce the air pollution effects of methane and reduce the greenhouse gas effects of methane.

China and India can benefit greatly from a technology and management exchange on that kind of a subject. Again, I give you this as an example. We'll have dozens of these elements to the portfolio, some of which will move very rapidly, some of which will require, you know, a year or two of development to get them underway and then the key is to then get the financing behind that and that will come from the private sector. That will come through the multilateral development banks and through good old-fashioned market-based private sector investment.

QUESTION: Excuse me -- Darren Samuelson from Green Wire. A two-part question for you. One -- a Sydney newspaper today is reporting that everything that you're describing could lead to three percent -- I'm sorry, three times as much emission reduction as the Kyoto Protocol. I was wondering if you could address that possibility.

And then second, can you give us a sense, looking forward, how many more meetings are we talking about? Is it going to be every year annually at this time of the year and moving around from each country to each country?

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: Want me to do the second part?

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Yeah, you can do the second part.

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: In terms of the meeting, the specific participants, I think, will try to work out what makes sense. There will be eight groups, task forces. I mentioned and identified the eight areas for all of you. And it will be determined on the ground what kind of work plan based on the national strategies and approaches and actions to be determined specifically need to be developed.

Already, the beginnings of work plans have begun in a number of the sectors. Some are more advanced, some will be developed further in the meeting in Sydney. So I think to answer your question, I think that really is going to depend. But one thing I'd like to underscore here if I may and apropos of the earlier question, not so much on the metrics of it, but this partnership is very innovative and groundbreaking for a number of reasons.

First, it bridges the developed and developing countries toward specific commitments in addressing not just the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions but toward the very vital need of sustained development and economic growth. Countries like India, China are grappling with issues relevant to economic growth and are looking for various ways and means, effective and efficient ways and means of advancing their economies and at the same time, doing it in a very environmentally responsible way. This partnership affords the opportunity of building capacity and I also think quite significantly bridges very effectively the public and private sectors. There will be opportunities down the road in a variety of settings. And as you ask about meetings, I envision that there will be gatherings among the businesses of specifically the private sector. In some cases maybe bilaterally, in some cases with all six to basically and specifically advance specific projects.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: On the numbers -- I don't -- I haven't seen any official government analysis of that, so I'm not aware of that. I would note that this business-to-business dialogue that Under Secretary Dobriansky is talking about typically doesn't happen. Our utility sector in America is largely a domestic sector and in China it's a domestic sector, so they typically don't get together and look for shared strategies and opportunities, especially when it comes to just selection of new and innovative technologies. Cement -- cement is largely a domestic sector and yet that's one of the places where we can see tremendous opportunities for reduction of air pollutants as well as reduction of greenhouse gases through efficiency.

Aluminum is very well, you know, they are more of a multinational sector, okay. So, they're very well organized and will move relatively quickly on this. But these other sectors, this is a real opportunity that hasn't occurred before for us to have a very meaningful exchange among business leaders, not just the technology providers but the people who have to make the decisions about the engineering and make the decision of selection of technologies and then how to finance it.

Now, again that's the kind of conversation that has not occurred before in the context of this important area. So, again, this is a hard work. It's a little bit -- in one sense, with due respect to my colleague, Under Secretary Dobriansky, going to an international treaty discussion to negotiate documents is a little bit easier than the hard work of actually getting sectors together and coming up with real work plans. And that's what we're about here. And so it will unfold at various paces, Darren, in the final response to your question. You'll see some sectors moving really rapidly and you'll see others that have never talked to each other before working out the arrangements of how to create a real six country business-to-business dialogue.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) from Agence France Press. Is this an evolving partnership in which more countries will be embraced over time? And, two, when Secretary Dobriansky -- when you said about $3 billion committed so far in terms of cutting-edge technology, you're talking about the United States or all these six countries?

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: Well, I will answer the second, if you want to do the other. With regard to the $3 billion, I am referring to the monies that the United States have put on the table. In fact, our contribution for this FY '06 fiscal year has been $5 billion, of which $3 billion, as I cited, has been specifically devoted to cutting-edge technologies and technology development. We see that as providing a very important foundation here for building on and advancing in the variety of sectors, whether it be hydrogen, whether it be carbon sequestration and moving forward.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: And related to that, I would note our emphasis in the last several years has been on standing up some very consequential multilateral technology development partnerships. Things like hydrogen, which are, you know, often the mid-future. What this partnership is focused on and now where we are moving our efforts while we sustain the technology development, we are moving our effort to technology deployment. And so this is about trying to accelerate the investment in and use of the technologies that are now coming to fore, that are, you know, we're going -- are the solution. The solution is through technology.

In terms of expanding, as I indicated, this is hard work. Six countries, each of which is engaging up to half a dozen ministries. And so we are being careful to do this well, so that it can become a foundation for bringing in some additional partners. And so we can anticipate expansion but we want to be sure that expansion occurs on a very, very strong foundation. And so I think in this initial period six is about right and then hopefully we can find a way to accommodate others.

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: May I just add -- forgive me -- I just wanted to add one footnote to that if I may. In the meeting in Sydney, thought has been given, in fact, and a meeting is planned in the aftermath of the ministerial, to reach out to other interested parties because there have been other countries that have expressed an interest in finding out about the details of the discussion. And so Australia as the host has planned for a briefing of interested countries' admissions who desire to be debriefed.

MR. ERELI: Dave?

QUESTION: Dave Gollust of Voice of America. Sort of returning to Sue's initial question, this arrangement is being described as an end-run, an evasion of the Kyoto Protocol. And I'm wondering how do you see the relationship of this coalition with the Kyoto infrastructure? I mean, do you consider -- is it a hostile maneuver or -- and will you have some kind of a relationship with Kyoto?

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: First, we do not see this as a replacement. We see it as a complement to the Kyoto Protocol. First of all, if you look at the six participants, as you know, China, India and Korea are supporters of the Kyoto Protocol, although with nonbinding commitments. Japan is a supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, with binding commitments. And then you know the positions of the United States and Australia.

I think what this underscores is that there's a shared vision and a shared commitment. In this case, it goes beyond, though, the Kyoto Protocol. The shared commitment supports the essence of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, terms of the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. However, this partnership, while it is unique, it's innovative is because it goes beyond. It addresses and deals with economic growth, with energy security, dealing with air pollution. There are interrelated set of goals and objectives that -- via which we see multiple benefits coming out of this.

So to answer your question precisely, we see this as, if you will, it complements the Kyoto Protocol. There are those partners within it who have relationships to the Kyoto Protocol. But what is distinctive is this goes beyond the fundamental objectives of the Kyoto Protocol by reaching out and integrating other key goals and objectives that were in fact part of the Gleneagles plan of action.

Do you want to --

MR. ERELI: Yes, sir.

QUESTION: I'm just wondering if you can -- I was interested in your comments on trade actually. I'm wondering if you can give us any sense for the possibility of LNG receiving tunnels in California. It's been one of the frustrations of energy companies in Australia. That it's taking a long time for a kind of receiving tunnel idea to get up in California. Obviously, we have abundance of natural gas.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Well, first, let's start with natural gas, which is one of the cleaner of the fossil energy sources currently. And so, natural gas is an important vital part of each of the six countries' energy security needs. Having LNG as an opportunity in the United States enhances our energy security because it promotes a diversity of potential future supply, so we're not reliant on one particular area, or as we recently saw in the case of Russia and Europe, one particular pipeline to meet the domestic needs. Certainly, California is an abundant user of natural gas and so one would expect them to have an interest in a greater diversity of supply of that gas. However, deciding these terminals raises the same kinds of questions, as do other activities off the coast of our shores. So we are hopeful to work through those. We have a dedicated commitment to opening up the opportunity for a lot more LNG to America. But this is the central issue.

Australia is a great provider of natural gas. Australia is also a great provider to the world markets of coal. And both of those sources, when managed properly and with the appropriate pollution control can be clean, longstanding and affordable sources of energy, which is the foundation of lifting people out of poverty. If you don't have access to energy, you can't clean up people's water because you can't push water through pumps and filters to make it clean and safe. You don't get modern agriculture, which has a much lower environmental footprint, because you need energy to power tractors and to do more modern technology-based forms of agriculture. And if you don't have energy to, you know, to heat people's home in the winter, it's a net drag on the condition of life.

So, that's why the vision behind this partnership, which is supported by the G-8 Leaders' vision, is so central. We need to, you know, you ask LNG that's a specific issue, but we have to look at LNG in the context of energy security, where it fits in the air pollution reduction strategy and where it fits in the greenhouse gas strategy. It's an essential player.

MR. ERELI: Sir.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Yes. Doug Obey from Inside EPA. I was wondering if you could elaborate on -- I believe it was mentioned earlier on -- of new financial commitments under the partnership.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Stay tuned.

QUESTION: Do you have targets for emissions and how this partnership will affect emissions both -- of all the participants and each of the participants?

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Yes, let me -- I gave you a few examples of the -- we will be coming to the table with our nationally set objectives and targets and I gave you few. Let me give you some additional examples in the sectors.

Our aluminum sector has set a specific goal with respect to the tons of carbon emitted for aluminum processed. So, they're pushing for an efficiency goal when it comes to aluminum processing, how much energy they use and how much carbon emission. Our cement manufacturers in the U.S. have pledged to reduce their CO2 emissions by 10 percent on a per ton basis by 2020.

Now, I'll give you that as two examples. Let's see -- I can give you one more. Iron and steel has committed to a 10 percent sector-wide increase in efficiency by 2012. So they stated their target in terms of efficiency because that's the way they manage it. Now, each of our sectors has done that domestically through what's called the Climate Vision Program, which the President launched in 2002. It took them about a year to come to the point where they could set down that kind of a goal and commitment.

In Japan, their counterpart sectors have similar commitments that is part of Japan's portfolio of action in meeting its Kyoto commitment. And so our two sectors have made similar types of commitments that work their way then into our national greenhouse gas strategies. In the other countries -- China and India -- their sectors have not done this kind of thing yet. We could expect several of our task forces to identify sort of common opportunities that they'll work on together. I can't predict right now how it will come out and you'll see more details on that next week and then in the time that follows.

But all of this activity does require goal-setting of a type. It's just most of it is goal-setting of type very different than the Kyoto style of goal-setting because we're looking at management strategies. We're looking at -- China will cut -- will seek to desulfurize 46 percent of its plants. We have a good sense of what that's going to take: how many power plants that is, how much technology they'll need, how much financing that will take. It's that kind of information that we're going to be able to pull together and make available, by the way, to the participants, you know, so they can understand. So our technology vendors see what's China's doing, so the Chinese technology vendors can see what we're going have to do to cut air pollution by 70 percent. And then this way -- this information that currently is hard to come by and we're going to open up. You know, this will be a much more open process and, therefore, hopefully open up the trade and then open up the confidence in the private sector investing.

That's why, you know, most of our pollution control, for example, in America will come through good old-fashioned Wall Street financing. And so the issue is, you know, who's going to be in, who's going to be behind that. Others of these projects will be supported very aggressively, for example, by the Export Import Bank who will be designing a business plan around this partnership, so they can work with our vendors and provide, you know, good rates for the export of our technologies to meet some of the objectives set by some of the other countries.

MR. ERELI: Just a couple more. Yes, ma'am.

QUESTION: I understand that this is a long-term issue. Having said that, what would the United States like to accomplish at the very first meeting next week and are you expecting some kind of joint statement?

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: Starting with the second question, there will be the issuance of the charter, a communiqué, and then also significantly relevant to the first question, the issuance of a work plan. The question was posed before about future meetings, future steps. In these sectors that have been put forward, the countries and the companies will be getting together, the representatives from each country and the company representatives will get together to discuss specifically the work plans in these different sectors. So, we see as an outcome quite significantly is movement forward in each of these areas.

In fact, you may want to add because in terms of some of the specific projects that I know are on the table.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: Climate change is a long-term issue that requires immediate mid-term and long-term actions. And the focus here in this partnership is actually on the near term, the more immediate steps we can take on existing or near-emerging technologies.

Air pollution is an issue that has been with us, of great immediacy, for a couple of decades now. And certainly there's no place where it's more of an immediate concern than China and India. And certainly Japan appreciate that very much because some of that air pollution comes across the Straits and finds its way on Japan's shores. And that has real human health consequences as we stand here today. And so to the extent we can accelerate investments and strategies for significantly reducing harmful air pollutants, that's something of immediate concern that would be focused on.

And of course, as you all know, the energy security issues are as significant and as immediate today as they have ever been, at least in a generation. And so that is motivating a lot of new thinking in capitals and a lot of new thinking in the private sectors. And we want to harness that interest in energy security in a way that will also then help us deliver air quality and climate change objectives.

MR. ERELI: Last question.

QUESTION: When countries come forward and present their initial plans, will there be a peer pressure kind of mechanism where, for example, U.S. could say -- could question China's pollution policies and China questioning, for example, U.S. policies?

MR. CONNAUGHTON: I hope we will be creating cascading opportunities of inspiration, rather than peer pressure and shaming. Let me put that in more simple terms.

We have figured out how to fairly effectively cut the sulfur dioxide from our coal-fired power plants. Employing similar instruments in China could enable them to do so faster and even more effectively than their current plans. So, that's an opportunity of putting a really good product on a shelf and showing to somebody else and saying, hey, I want that, that's really helpful for me. And so, if China can cut its air pollution and provide more energy to its people, right, because -- and then offset the cost of that, that's good for the welfare of the Chinese people as well.

So, what we have found -- I will give you the example of methane -- in the United States an initiative was launched by the first President Bush, carried forward in the Clinton administration and it has dramatically cut the methane from all of our coal mining operations and from our -- and we get nothing from landfills now in America. They don't do that routinely in China and India. And yet that is a money-maker. It's just they haven't had the experience of how to do it, how to get the financing for it, right. And then do the infrastructure related to that. But that is actually relatively simple; you just have to make the decision and commitments to do it.

So, this is an example -- there's no peer pressure, if you will. This is good old-fashion market inspiration. Its just information was lacking and experience was lacking. And I could give you a dozen examples like that one and that's what we're trying to bring forward.

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: I was just going to say that the essence is there's an incentive here and the incentive is very much the desire, not only to be environmentally responsible but also to be able to advance your economy. And that's a core underpinning of this initiative.

QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up. In the charter there will not be a clause, for example, as a common goal -- what all can achieve, a benchmark of such. Will there be some kind of --

UNDER SECRETARY DOBRIANSKY: If you look at, first, the shared vision statement that came out last year and you look at the charter and you look at the communiqué, I think that you will see that there are benchmarks. There are benchmarks in terms of what goals and objectives the partnership specifically seeks to achieve. And that's why -- you used another term -- I would say that it's the incentive here, that undergoods this partnership.

MR. CONNAUGHTON: We’re also trying to avoid the arbitrary, you know. You ask about one goal. Typically the exercise of setting one overarching goal ends up as an arbitrary exercise. So, what we are doing through this partnership, which is different, is breaking down the essential components of where you'd like to take some action. And then seeing inside of those components what the most relevant objectives will be. Some of them may be -- have a metric. Some of them may be a quantity. Again, I'll give the China example. They're going to cut pollution -- sulfur from 46 percent of their power plants. It's not a 46 percent cut in pollution; they're going to have 46 percent of their plants desulfurized. So they just articulated differently.

We want to reduce our greenhouse gas intensity and we've got a way to measure that. China is working on efficiency. And what we've found is if we work in the context of goals that are relevant to national circumstances, we get a lot more attention and a lot more interest in moving forward on these issues, rather than trying to refine objectives or try again, try to manufacture an arbitrary, sort of overarching set of objectives.

MR. ERELI: Thank you very much.

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