The palpable results of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit of Saturday won’t be observed too soon, even worse, voluntary agencies criticize the agreement reached.

The 21 forum leaders met on a two-day summit to discuss about the negative effects of the greenhouse gas, about concerns about climate changes and to reach consensus regarding what measures should be taken. The agreement was signed on the very first day of the meeting, as US President George W. Bush was forced to head to Washington to attend the essential progressive report on the war in Iraq.

It appears that the agreement was really reached in a hurry, as the final decision was the recognition of the necessity to curb GHS. The Sydney’s Declaration limited to the 21 nations’ alignment to the world’s concerns and to the general goal of curbing pollution.

“We are committed to the global objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. The world needs to slow, stop and then reverse the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions,” read Australian Prime Minister John Howard in the end of the first session.

The fact that some major developing countries such as China attended the summit was considered a success and a step forward in environmental protection.

APEC expressed support for international action to hinder climate changes, referring to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but making exemption of its update, the Kyoto Protocol. The latter was the first to settle legal-binding goals.

International meetings held on this topic appeared more firm and action-focused then the latest, the APEC summit limiting to setting an “aspirational goal” to improve energy efficiency by 25 percent until 2030 and to increase the forest covered areas by 20 million acres by 2020.

Voluntary agencies claim that the APEC resolution is actually a drawback in the world fight against GHS emissions, having in mind the last week’s Vienna meeting when it was decided between parties of the Kyoto protocol, to reduce gas emission by 25 to 40 percent.

APEC includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam.