"I'm pleased with the vision that is there. It is an acknowledgement of the problem we have with the climate change," Pierre Pettigrew told reporters on the sidelines of a regional security forum.

The initiative unveiled by the United States, Australia, India, China, South Korea and Japan called for a non-binding compact to reduce emissions.

It does not have enforcement standards or a specific time-frame for signatories to cut emissions, unlike the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which the United States and Australia have refused to ratify.

"This is progress but I am still waiting for the meat... I hope very much that there will be meat because we need that," said Pettigrew, whose country in December will host the first round of negotiations on what happens after the Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012.

"We will have to see how this will be developed," the minister said.

President George W. Bush earlier walked away from the UN's Kyoto Protocol, which legally commits 39 industrial nations and territories to trim their output of six greenhouse gases -- especially carbon dioxide -- by 2012 compared with 1990 levels.

Bush's move damaged the US image and crippled the global cleanup effort by depriving it of the support of the world's biggest polluter.

But at a recent meeting of the G8 group of industrialized countries including Canada, Bush acknowledged the climate change problem, Pettigrew said.

The "vision statement" issued Thursday is a further step following that acknowledgement, he said.

"We really do welcome that very much and I hope that this will lead to the Montreal conference in December on the environment in a constructive way, in a constructive fashion," said the minister, who expects non-Kyoto signatories to participate in that conference.

Pettigrew said he does not see the new six-party pact as weakening Kyoto.

"I would say that in the vision statement they have acknowledged that this was a complement, it was not meant to replace Kyoto," he said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said details of the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate would be discussed at a meeting of ministers from the six nations in Australia in November.

Their "vision statement" envisions the development of nuclear and solar power to reduce greenhouse gases.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.