News Analysis: Aussie PM keen on business, but climate change likely to dominate U.S. tour
时间：2014-09-26 16:45
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CANBERRA, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has begun the United States leg of his North American tour, repeating his now familiar refrain that Australia was "open for business".
But his visit is likely to be dominated by climate change, a subject on which he appears out of step with many other world leaders, including U.S. president Barack Obama, with whom he will have potentially awkward talks on the matter in Washington on Thursday.
During discussions with like-minded Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper prior to crossing the border, Abbott said climate change was "a significant problem" but "not the only or even the most important problem that the world faces".
The center-right leaders agreed they would put their economies ahead of action on climate change, though Abbott said he supported moves to arrest carbon emissions that would not "clobber the economy".
The Obama administration, like others around the globe, is committed to a more robust response to climate change, last week announcing the power sector would be required to reduce emissions by 30 percent on 2005 levels by 2030.
That announcement followed the European Union decision earlier this year to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.
Australia, by comparison, has adopted a less demanding target of lowering 2,000 greenhouse gas emissions levels by five percent by 2020.
After an early morning run with firefighters and laying a wreath at the 9/11 memorial on the site of the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks, Abbott rang the bell to signal the start of trading at the stock exchange in New York on Tuesday and then proceeded to spruik Australian business.
At a function attended by scores of Australian and American business leaders, many of whom contribute to annual two-way investment between the countries in excess of 1 trillion U.S. dollars, Abbott spoke of the opportunities presented by infrastructure investment and the rise of Asia.
"The rise of China has been good for the wider world because there are now so many more people to afford to buy what the rest of the world produces," Abbott said.
"All of my overseas trips are in large measure about more jobs for Australians. And we can't have more Australian jobs without stronger Australian businesses," he added.
Abbott also raised the possibility of using Australia's presidency of G20 this year to push for tougher coordinated global tax laws to stop companies shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions while they book their costs in higher tax countries such as Australia.
He said it was time multinational companies, such as the digital technology giants of the computer age, paid their share of taxation.
"We need global tax rules to ensure that businesses pay tax in the countries where they earn revenue and we need financial system and energy system governance that better reflects the changing balance of economic power," he said.
Abbott said the United States' short- and medium-term economic outlook was positive, based on a manufacturing revival and America remaining "the world's greatest source of ideas" as witnessed by America's move towards energy self-sufficiency through shale gas.
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