Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Asia-Pacific News
Sydney - Australian finance to help curb illegal logging in Indonesia will have a greater impact in slowing climate change than signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday.
Australia, along with the United States, has refused to be part of the Kyoto initiative that sets targets for signatory countries to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that change the climate.
Howard announced spending 200 million Australian dollars (154 million US dollars) over five years, most of which will go to Indonesia, to a fund managed by the World Bank.
Howard said the monies would result in fewer trees being cut down. 'And, as everybody knows, if you can do that you can reduced greenhouse gas emissions,' Howard said.
He claimed the fund would aim to halve the rate of deforestation and achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions 10 times greater than would be achievable under the Kyoto Protocol.
Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he hoped other countries would tip money into the initiative.
'The only way we can in the near term materially reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is by reviving our forests,' he said. 'We'll be working with other countries, developed countries, developing countries, to stop the destruction of the world's remaining forests, to promote sustainable management of forests, to promote new planting of forests.'
The fund would have a similar structure to the six-party Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate created last year.
Turnbull said satellite imagery would be offered to help partner countries curb illegal logging.
'We will be working with programmes with partners, both at a local level to promote reforestation and sustainable forestry management and at a national level to ensure there is proper compliance with forestry plans and that there is no net reduction in forest cover,' Turnbull said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur