MANILA: Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop on Thursday voiced her support for the completion of a “code of conduct” aimed at reducing tensions amid China’s aggressive claim to almost all of the South China Sea.
Bishop, who is on a visit to the Philippines, said she discussed the matter with her Filipino counterpart Albert del Rosario.
There have been heightened tensions between China and its neighbors — including the Philippines — because of disputes over maritime territory.
Bishop said Australia favored the push by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to craft a “code of conduct” to better manage the issues.
“In the case of the South China Sea, we support ASEAN objectives in concluding a Code of Conduct with China and we hope that there will be some early progress on that,” she said.
“We urge all sides not to escalate tensions,” she added.
ASEAN has been trying for more than a decade to secure agreement from China on a legally binding code of conduct aimed at reducing tensions and the risk of violence in the South China Sea.
Among ASEAN members are Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam, which along with China, have claims to parts or all of the South China Sea.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, even up to the borders of its neighbors.
Bishop stressed that her country was not taking any side in the dispute, and urged that all issues should be resolved “peacefully.”
Bishop said the South China Sea was a key interest to Australia since 60 percent of its exports and 40 percent of its imports passed through the area.
The Philippines has been seeking more international support to challenge China’s claims to the South China Sea.
Del Rosario meanwhile said the Philippines had been forced to seek UN arbitration because it had “exhausted all (other) possibilities,” in arguing its case with China.
He also said that the Philippines and Australia would be boosting their defense cooperation especially after a “status of visiting forces agreement” between the two countries went into effect in 2012.
Australia already provides military training and education and conducts “table-top” exercises with the Philippines but the agreement opens the door to actual joint military exercises in Philippine territory.
He also thanked Australia for the extensive aid, including the dispatch of Australian troops, ships and aircraft, given to the Philippines after Super Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the central islands in November.
Australia endorses ‘code of conduct’ for South China Sea
Australia endorses ‘code of conduct’ for South China Sea
Trump set to repeal scientific finding that serves as basis for US climate change policy
- The endangerment finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Thursday will revoke a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the White House announced.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a final rule rescinding a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding. That Obama-era policy determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will “formalize the rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding” at a White House ceremony, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
The action “will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations,” she said. The bulk of the savings will stem from reduced costs for new vehicles, with the EPA projecting average per vehicle savings of more than $2,400 for popular light-duty cars, SUVs and trucks. Leavitt said.
The endangerment finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet. It is used to justify regulations, such as auto emissions standards, intended to protect against threats made increasingly severe by climate change — deadly floods, extreme heat waves, catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in the United States and around the world.
Legal challenges would be certain for any action that effectively would repeal those regulations, with environmental groups describing the shift as the single biggest attack in US history on federal efforts to address climate change.
EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the Obama-era rule was “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history” and said EPA “is actively working to deliver a historic action for the American people.”
Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” previously issued an executive order that directed EPA to submit a report on “the legality and continuing applicability” of the endangerment finding. Conservatives and some congressional Republicans have long sought to undo what they consider overly restrictive and economically damaging rules to limit greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by Trump to lead EPA last year, has criticized his predecessors in Democratic administrations, saying they were “willing to bankrupt the country” in an effort to combat climate change.
Democrats “created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence ... segments of our economy,″ Zeldin said in announcing the proposed rule last July. ”And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
Peter Zalzal, a lawyer and associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, countered that the EPA will be encouraging more climate pollution, higher health insurance and fuel costs and thousands of avoidable premature deaths.
Zeldin’s push “is cynical and deeply damaging, given the mountain of scientific evidence supporting the finding, the devastating climate harms Americans are experiencing right now and EPA’s clear obligation to protect Americans’ health and welfare,” he said.
Zalzal and other critics noted that the Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that planet-warming greenhouse gases, caused by burning of oil and other fossil fuels, are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Since the high court’s decision, in a case known as Massachusetts v. EPA, courts have uniformly rejected legal challenges to the endangerment finding, including a 2023 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Following Zeldin’s proposal to repeal the rule, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reassessed the science underpinning the 2009 finding and concluded it was “accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”
Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 is now resolved, the NAS panel of scientists said in a September report. “The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute,” the panel said.
