PM to prod China on trade, climate

KEVIN Rudd will bend the ears of Chinese leaders on trade reform and climate change during his visit to Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games.

KEVIN Rudd will bend the ears of Chinese leaders on trade reform and climate change during his visit to Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games.

The Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister said yesterday that Chinese co-operation was crucial to resuscitate the dying Doha Round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.

He said he would raise trade and climate issues with the Chinese leaders when he flies to Beijing next week for the Games.

Nine days of Doha trade talks involving 35 countries collapsed in Geneva on Wednesday, after the US opposed India's demand for special safeguards to let developing countries use temporary tariffs to protect their farmers against surges in imports.

But Mr Rudd yesterday insisted China had played a constructive role in the talks, which might yet be "rekindled".

"All has not been lost," he told a Don Dunstan Foundation fundraising lunch in Brisbane. "When I am in Beijing next week for the Olympics, I will again use the opportunity with the Chinese leadership to explore what might be possible still to revive the Doha trade round."

The Prime Minister said the collapse of the trade negotiations in Geneva was a major setback in international relations.

The world needed a "shot of confidence", he said.

"It (Doha) is important not just for global trade and not just for Australian trade, but (it) is critically important now to give a shot of confidence to the global economy.".

He called for multilateral co-operation with China on climate change. As the world's biggest consumers and producers of coal, he said, China and Australia had a duty to develop technologies that would reduce the greenhouse gases from burning coal.

"The case for global and national action on climate change remains stark," he said.

"China is the world's largest coal-consuming country. Australia is the largest coal-exporting country.

"These countries together share a common responsibility to work on, to develop and if possible to commercially deploy at scale clean coal technologies. That is a core priority of the Government I lead.

"If our objective remains to have a genuinely Asia-Pacific century, peaceful and prosperous, Australian co-operation at all levels with China ... is critical to our success."

Mr Rudd said it was in Australia's national interest to try to minimise climate change.

"The economic cost of inaction on climate change now is far greater than the economic cost of action," he said.

"We are already the world's hottest and driest continent. We run the risk of being hit hardest and earliest by climate change unless we can turn this around."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and executives from the mining and energy industries were among hundreds of business heavyweights attending the lunch speech yesterday.

Rio Tinto executive Grant Thorne and Queensland Gas boss Richard Cottee shared the Prime Minister's table.