24/09/2014 Asia Business Report

Now on BBC News all the latest business news live from Singapore.

The business of battling climate change. The UN Summit in New York

sees China promising to cut its emissions. Fewer demands for coal

are hitting the manufacturers hard. Thank you for joining us for Asia

Business Report. At the end of a special summit on climate change in

New York, the UN Secretary General said that never before had so many

leaders come together for the business of reducing carbon

emissions and said the summit had shown the international community

could rise to the challenge. Speaking on the sidelines, the vice

premier of China agreed with him and with Barack Obama that the largest

admissions producing countries have a response ability to lead.

TRANSLATION: We will announce actions after 2020 as soon as we can

reduce carbon intensity and increase the share of nonfossil fuels, raise

our forests stock and try to limit CO2 emissions as soon as possible.

Next year, we will become the first Asian country to implement a

nationwide emissions trading scheme. We will also let frugal

consumers save electricity and send it back to the grid. We pledge to

reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020. The target will go

up to 41%. We heard the pledges they are from China, South Korea and

Indonesia. China making its first contributions and South Korea

promising to be the first country in Asia to introduce an emissions

trading scheme. For further commentary on this, we are joined by

an economist. How significant is this goal of the Chinese to cut

carbon emissions by 45% in six years time? It is the target and we must

have them but for the whole point about climate change come a it is

about boiling a frog in water. You slowly start heating up the water,

it is not until the frog finds it intolerable to stay in the water and

jumps out that people actually do anything. It is significant that

these leaders are doing something now but unfortunately, they will all

have bigger issues to worry about stop in the case of China, they will

try to ensure that emissions peak at a certain time as early as possible

but they will have big issues as well and climate change should be

something they are thinking about the budget isn't really paramount.

This comes as the Chinese economy is slowing down. Is reducing carbon

emissions good economics for the Chinese? That is the crucial point

and that is what I mean when I say they have other issues to worry

about. They need to ensure that economic growth carries on at 7.5%

this year and next year and if it doesn't, what will they do? Climate

change will get put on the back burner for a while. Many of these

leaders like to speak from both sides of their mouth at the same

time and which one they speak out of is determined by the economy. They

have to say the right things on a global stage. What about South Korea

introducing their global initiative? That is a good example

of them coming up with a scheme. No one knows whether it will in South

Korea as it hasn't worked elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, these

leaders at these forums have to say something. They have to be seen to

do something or else what is the point of turning up at? `` up? They

got a good soundbite and they will have delivered their homework. You

don't sound very hopeful about these reductions in carbon emissions.

Thank you for joining us. Moving to other news. Barclays has been fined

a record $62 million by a UK regulator for failing to keep its

clients assets separate from its own. The bank said it did not profit

from the issue and no customers lost out. This comes three years after

the lending giant paid out $1.8 million for a similar problem.

Prosecutors in South Korea are investigating the owners of Tesco

after allegations that private information of customers was sold to

insurance companies. Tesco said it was cooperating with the probe. In a

separate case, they are also under fire in the UK after overstating

their half your profit guidance. Demand for coal is having an impact

on the world's largest mining company and it has meant lower

prices for the commodity for BHP Billiton which plans to cut several

hundred jobs in a joint coal mining venture with Mitsubishi in Japan. It

represents about 7% of their total workforce and I spoke to a commodity

analyst earlier about this, asking him if this was a drastic move. We

do think it is drastic. If you look at what they have been doing over

the last two years, they have been taking costs out of their operations

successfully without really looking at its workforce. It did take out a

jobs out of its coal operations and this is the first significant move

we have seen in the reduction of their workforce in this particular

sector. Could we see more layoffs going forward for BHP Billiton? We

certainly think they will be continuing to look at their cost

base and we could to say there might be other job layoffs in the future.

Not so much in cold that probably a cross some of their other operations

into the future `` across. We're it very closely. `` we are watching

it. 100 million Chinese are expecting to move to cities by 2020

and that puts pressure on the government to build economically

sustainable cities. Our correspondent went to one such city

and Tianjin. As you drive across the bridge, there is a definite sense of

entering a different place. It is not so much the broad boulevards and

tree`lined sidewalks or the reminders that 20% of the city's

power will one day come from renewable energy. What is noticeable

is what is missing. The overwhelming question as you walk around this

city in the afternoon heat is where is everybody? The developers say

they are coming and there are 12,000 residents already here, just two

years ago there were virtually none. But that is a fraction of the

350,000 the city will eventually support. In the local market, there

is none of the usual bustle of food shopping and that the community

centre, there is no lineup to play. But for locals like this woman and

her friends, the environment is a big attraction. TRANSLATION: I used

to live in a city and the air quality was not great. Here it is

great. In a country notorious for polluted cities, this project is a

commitment by China to build a sustainable urban centre. The sheer

scale of the place makes it hard to replicate. It was planned to be

highly workable... This man is in charge of everything from water

quality to waste disposal. One of the biggest challenges is balancing

everything. Do we go for the highest environmental targets or what the

market can support? Only what you can sell at the moment? That's

right. 60 `70% of the homes here are sold. On the Commercial Street 's,

this woman has sold wine for the last two years and says more people

are moving in and it gets busier every year. It is trying to attract

new residents just as China's property sector slows down but the

hope is that the promise of cleaner and Greener acts as a buffer against

the headwinds. A brief look at the markets. Asian

stocks art tracking the decline of Wall Street overnight `` are.

Everyone is in negative territory. Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Thank you for investing your time with us.

I'm Mike Embley. The top stories this hour. The US government has

said Tuesday's airstrikes were successful but only the beginning of

a sustained campaign against the