AUSTRALIA will press members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum to consider working towards an emissions trading scheme, at a meeting of APEC energy ministers in Darwin this week.

The wording of the move will be broad in the context of the ministers’ talks on energy sustainability and the environment, allowing for the wide divergence of views among the 21 APEC member countries.

It will be an important recognition that APEC cannot stand aside from the growing world concern over climate change.

The meeting’s host, federal resources minister Ian Macfarlane, has made it clear a formal emissions trading scheme is not being discussed or even proposed but that the APEC ministers will be taking the first steps towards a unified view of how climate change might be handled.

A business forum to be held today ahead of the formal ministerial meeting will concentrate on the question of high energy prices and climate change.