International agreement on managing climate change will be a goal of Asia-Pacific finance ministers meeting in Australia this week, the chairman of the gathering said Tuesday. Australian Treasurer Peter Costello said he hoped the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum at the east coast tourist resort at Coolum would reach consensus on reducing carbon emissions. «An agreement on principles of climate change _ how to manage climate change whilst keeping an economy growing and how to cooperate on those principles,» is most important, Costello told reporters in Brisbane on his way to Coolum, 160 kilometers (100 miles) to the north. «We have here ... the world's biggest emitters _ China and the United States _ and to have that discussion with them and to see if we can get an agreement on principles for managing carbon emissions and cooperation across the world's major economies would be a really good step forward,» he added. Australia, as APEC host, has placed climate change at the top of the agenda of the annual APEC leaders' forum in Sydney in September.
