First, this meeting will provide the US and China a chance to meet behind the scenes, for the first time since Hillary Clinton visited China last month to initiate a discussion on robust bilateral coordination on energy and climate issues. Both Clinton and her Chinese counterparts suggested in February that the G20 meeting would give the two nations’ leaders a chance to move ahead with the compact. The next step may well be a US-China leader summit, which a recent policy think tank “roadmap” for collaboration, given to Clinton in advance of her trip, identified as a crucial building block in the process.

Secondly, this meeting will give other countries some signposts as to what they can expect from China in December. G20 participants have already expressed their expectation that China will ante up in this time of global economic need. Gauging the tone of China’s reaction to G20 participants’ financial demands will provide participating OECD countries – particularly those expecting China to make serious commitments on emissions reductions in the “Green New Deal” – some hint as to what a distressed China can be expected to deliver in environmental negotiation terms. The last two weeks’ NPC legislative session in Beijing definitively demonstrated that China’s first priority is repairing the economy, not the environment. Thus, China’s reaction to the key role G20 participants expect her to play in the summit may serve as an accurate litmus test for anticipated outcomes in Copenhagen.

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President-elect Barack Obama did not send representatives to the APEC Global Climate Summit but he recorded this message promising “a new chapter of American leadership on climate change.”

After Obama announced plans for an aggressive, two-year economic stimulus package, President-elect Barack Obama has selected the A Class Economic team that will help him to “do what’s necessary” to fix the economy.

“Vice President-elect Biden and I have assembled an economic team with the vision and expertise to stabilize our economy, create jobs, and get America back on track. Even as we face great economic challenges, we know that great opportunity is at hand — if we act swiftly and boldly. That’s the mission our economic team will take on,” said President-elect Obama.

The economic team members announced today are listed below:

Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury

Obama has chosen New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner — who rose to prominence earlier this year as a key official in shaping the US government’s financial rescue measures — to be Secretary of the Treasury.

Geithner played a pivotal role in the intense negotiations which took place before Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and also helped forge the deals involving AIG and JP Morgan. He regularly speaks about the need for major reforms in the financial system in order to avoid further turbulence. Before joining the Federal Reserve of New York, he worked for the International Monetary Fund. He was also the Treasury’s under-secretary for international affairs, from 1999 to 2001.

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Leaders, wearing traditional Peruvian ponchos, wave during the official group photo of 16th summit of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, in Lima, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008.

The 21 economies of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which represent more than half of the world’s productive power, assured the world yesterday (Sunday) at the end of a 2-day summit in Lima, that the global financial crisis can be quelled in 18 months.  But how they expect this to happen - or how their governments can help remains to be seen.

The 18-month time-line fits with a calculation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which forecast that developed economies would grow barely 0.1 percent in 2009, and that the world would emerge from the crisis the following year.

APEC, which groups some of the most open economies in the world, warned that countries should not be tempted to use protectionist measures even if job losses mount. APEC members pledged to work together to ease the turmoil, agreed not to adopt new trade barriers for a year and called for better regulation of the financial industry. Their declaration at the end of a two-day summit in Peru supported a declaration by the Group of 20 (G20) major economies at a meeting in Washington last weekend that pledged to maintain free trade despite pressures to protect domestic industries. They are looking at stimulus plans that include boosting government spending and cutting taxes.

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