Bush Will Request $52 Million For Asia-Pacific Kyoto "Alternative"

[hatrack]

$52 million?!? STOP IT!! All this spending and committment is making me DIZZY!!!

SYDNEY, Australia, January 13, 2006 (ENS) - President George W. Bush will request that Congress budget $52 million to promote clean energy technologies in the Asia-Pacific region and international cooperation in other energy areas, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at an international meeting in Sydney on Thursday. Addressing the inaugural gathering of the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate (APP), Bodman said the partnership brings together government and business representatives from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Bodman said the $52 million funding request for the in the upcoming FY 2007 budget is designed to complement the $3 billion the United States currently spends each year on clean energy projects.

EDIT

“Given that only energy companies and no environmental representatives will be at the meeting, it looks more like a PR exercise for the oil and coal industry than a meaningful discussion on climate change. “The planet is already feeling the effects of climate change. Countries like Australia, which are amongst the highest per capita greenhouse gas polluters in the world need to take immediate action to avert the disastrous potential of climate change,” Faehrmann said. “It is very unlikely that the companies who have the most to gain from selling oil and coal will be likely to take swift action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," she said.

Inside the conference room, Bodman cited evidence that economic development does not need to be incompatible with "responsible" care for the environment and said that improved environmental protection is one of the best indicators of growing prosperity.

EDIT

OK then, Sam, if that's true I guess China's economy must just be sucking big time, right? Right, Sam? :eyes:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2006/2006-01-13-01.asp

[NanceGreggs]

1. It looks like another $52 million of taxpayers' money ...

.. is on its way -- circuitously, of course -- to Big Oil under the guise of 'cleaning up the environment'.

Well, thank God for that. I understand that the oil companies are all teetering on the brink of bankruptcy right now ...