Sydney, May 27:

Senior APEC energy officials began meeting in the northern Australian city of Darwin today for talks which will focus on energy security and climate change, an official said.

The three-day long event will culminate with talks between the energy ministers of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members on Tuesday.

“APEC economies account for 60 per cent of the world’s energy demand so a meeting of this sort is a fairly crucial opportunity to nut out some of the issues,” a spokeswoman for Australian industry minister Ian Macfarlane said.

Ahead of the meeting, Macfarlane said that the talks would be ‘an important opportunity for us to address environmental concerns and promote clean and efficient energy production and use.’ Australia’s wealth of energy resources and technologies meant it was well placed to make a significant contribution to the APEC meeting, he said.

Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter, second largest uranium exporter and a major gas exporter. “APEC will also be an opportunity work with economies in the region to improve the operation of energy markets.”