The United States, Australia, India, China, Japan, South Korea announced on Thursday a new environment and energy partnership at an annual Southeast Asian foreign ministers gathering in Vientiane, dpa reported Thursday. The partnership between the six countries aims to develop and increase the transfer of technology between the members, in an effort to tackle global warming and ensure sustainable energy security. "This is a very important initiative and it reflects the depth of feeling we all have," said Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister. "(It is) not only about access to energy, access to energy supplies that are secure and competitively priced so that economic development continue to progress, but also about making sure in addressing those issues we are also tackling questions like climate change and pollution," the Australian foreign minister said at the launch of the partnership. The agreement between the six countries, which make up over half the world's population and economy, is not meant to replace the Kyoto protocol agreement on climate change signed by 140 countries in 1997, representatives said. "We view this as a complement, not an alternative to the U.N. framework convention on climate change and the Kyoto treaty," said Robert Zoellick, deputy secretary of State. "We will work together, in accordance with our respective national circumstances, to create a new partnership to develop, deploy and transfer cleaner, more efficient technologies and to meet national pollution reduction, energy security and climate change concerns," the six countries said in a collective statement issued on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF). --mor 1120 Local Time 0820 GMT
