The East Asia Summit is a major step forward for co-operation among the Asiann countries including India, Australia and New Zealand.
You can view an interactive map here.
The summit brings together 16 countries where they have suggested to form a trading bloc like the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement but which will cover half the world’s population and what could be termed the future growth engine for world economic growth.
The 16 countries that would be included in the free-trade area are Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
The summit provided steps towards energy security and bio-fuel production. Interestingly, for the first time various Asian nations including China and India are committing to cut down fossil fuel use through energy efficiency, better technology, alternative fuels including nuclear energy.
The declaration calls for moves to improve energy efficiency and reduce dependence on fossil fuels, while urging countries to expand renewable energy systems and biofuel production and “for interested parties, civilian nuclear power.”
It also calls for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring a stable supply of energy “through investments in regional infrastructure such as the ASEAN power grid and the trans-ASEAN gas pipeline.”
The New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is happy due to the focus on the environment on such a high level summit.
A pledge by Asian countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of a regional energy security pact is a welcome first step, even without concrete targets, New Zealand’s prime minister said on Monday.
Clark, 56, said New Zealand had worked to get the climate change reference into the declaration.
“Up until then the motivation for discussing these issues had been more on the problems arising from the price of oil and the volatility and the security questions of the issues but we are coming at it also very much also from a sustainability issue.”
Eenrgy security is vital to increase the standard of living for the majority of the world poor who are based in Asia and the head of the Asian Development Bank urged East Asian countries, which account for around a fifth of global trade, to create a massive free-trade bloc to pull 750 million of their citizens out of dire poverty.
Bio-fuels could be a good idea however, Matthew Warren in The Australian suggests that This is likely to alarm many environmentalists, who fear the scale of production required to achieve this geopolitical objective will only come through wholesale land clearing needed to produce the raw materials.
I believe this is a first step forward towards Asian economic integration and a better road forward towards peace in the region.
