On yer bike, Key - Korea leads on climate

Here in Hua-Hin, about two hours' breakneck drive south of Bangkok. Luckily the Thais don't share our general fear of speed or maybe it's just that their roads are a lot better, or it would have taken a lot longer.

First observations of the Asean Summit would be that it's much the same as any other number of meetings of leaders from around the world - endless security checks, police, motorcades, venues you can't get into, media rooms and hordes of journalists, most of whom are toting cameras and really only seem interested in taking "grin and grip'' photos of handshakes etc.

John Key hasn't arrived yet, so I've been spending my time looking at what the other leaders are up to, which is a nice luxury since normally at these things you have to be focused on your own PM, of course.

My favourite so far by miles is Korean President Lee Myung bak, and his wonderfully named wife and Korean First Lady Kim Yoon ok.

Like many Asian leaders, he suffers from a narcissistic personality trait, which has led President Lee to hand out in the media packs to journos here a glossy biography of himself (and a separate one for his wife) with the usual pictures of him with babies, riding a bike, etc. So far so standard.

But this guy is more than just rhetoric and publicity - he's a one-man climate change machine. Lee wants to build a cycleway around Korea (where have I heard that idea before?) but he also wants to build a single "Silk Road'' railway linking the Pacific to Europe and has pledged billions of US dollars to help build it.

In case you don't think he's serious, he's already timetabled to build the entire 3100km cycleway by 2018 - by which time our Government might have got around to finishing off something between Arrowtown and Balclutha. Perhaps Lee and Key should have a chat.

Mind you, I've always found that the general approach to things in Asia is just to do it, although I guess it helps when you have lots of cheap labour, money, and no Resource Management Act to worry about.

Lee seems to want to grab the climate change initiative here, which is interesting since he used to be the chief executive of car manufacturer Hyundai, although he may have some competition from new Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama, who's pledged to cut Japan's total carbon emissions by 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

It's funny because I've been to other meetings of this type where it's the highly developed economies telling the developing world what to do on climate change, but here it seems to be the other way around. Asean includes some pretty poor developing nations like Burma and Cambodia, and the East Asia Summit adds the fast-growing polluters like India and China as well as older developed economies like Japan, plus us and Australia.

I'm thinking, though, that after taking the early lead in the climate change debate (particularly under Helen Clark and John Howard) Australasia is about to get its butt kicked by these other nations who are demanding faster reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course the fact remains that New Zealand is the only country in the entire region with an Emissions Trading Scheme, even if National is in the process of gutting it. It's going to be interesting to see what they all come up with on Sunday, and what John Key has to say about it when he gets here.

There were fears of protest action and the like since the last two times they tried to hold this summit it ended in chaos, but thanks to the virtual martial law imposed here that doesn't seem likely. The Thais have poured literally thousands of troops and police on to the streets and basically cordoned off the entire tourist town for the weekend.

You have to feel a bit sorry for the few tourists who are staying at the resorts, since they've basically been invaded by officials, gun-toting military and, worse, hundreds of journalists.

Still, the food's nice, it's hot, and there aren't any Labour weekend traffic jams.

Have a great long weekend, everyone.

I'll report in again once Key arrives, should you be interesting in reading about politics over the break.

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