APP History and Structure

In July 2005, President Bush announced that the United States was joining with Australia, China, India, Japan, and Korea in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.

The APP builds on the foundation of existing bilateral and multilateral initiatives, and is consistent with and contributes to Partners’ efforts under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It complements but does not replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Ministers from the original six Partner countries held an inaugural meeting in January 2006 in Sydney, Australia. At that time, Partners agreed to a Communiqué, Charter, and Work Plan calling for the development of Task Forces to formulate sustainable solutions to our shared challenges through practical approaches in four key energy supply areas: Cleaner Fossil Energy, Coal Mining, Power Generation and Transmission, and Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation; and four key energy demand areas: Aluminum, Buildings and Appliances, Cement, and Steel.

Task Forces are staffed by representatives of both the government and private sector from each country, representing broader national and sectoral interests. In addition, numerous companies and NGOs contribute to individual Task Force progress through their projects. The Partnership’s Policy and Implementation Committee (PIC) met for a second time in conjunction with the first meeting of the Task Forces, in April 2006 in Berkeley, California, to initiate the work of the Task Forces. More than 300 participants, representing the six Partner countries’ industry, government, and research institutions, met and began a collaborative process to outline objectives and identify projects in each sectoral area.

The Task Forces met independently in the following months to develop Action Plans, which were endorsed by the PIC at their second meeting, held in October 2006 in Jeju, South Korea. The PIC also reviewed nearly 100 projects identified by the 8 Task Forces as essential components of the respective Action Plans. The eight Action Plans were the product of the Task Forces’ initial collaborative efforts to detail both immediate- and mid-term specific actions and projects. This signaled the start of the implementation phase of an ongoing series of programs designed to implement cleaner, cost-effective energy technologies and practices among the Partners.

Since then, the PIC has met three times and, to date, has endorsed a total of 156 projects. At the New Delhi Ministerial meeting in October 2007, the Partner ministers warmly welcomed Canada as the seventh member of the Partnership, recognized eighteen flagship projects exemplifying the scale and potential of the cooperation being undertaken by the Partners, and announced the launch of the implementation phase of the Asia-Pacific Energy Technology Cooperation Centre, hosted by Korea.