In 1999, the APEC region was responsible for 59% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from
fossil fuel combustion. Pulverized coal technologies accounted for 94% of coal-fired capacity in the region.27 The 21 countries comprising APEC include Australia, Canada, China, Japan, the
United States, and Russia. According to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Working Group
(APWG) study in 2001, projects to improve combustion, steam cycle, and O&M required low to
medium costs, and these expenditures were predicted to produce as much as a 3.5% net overall
efficiency improvement.28 These improvements could also result in the largest overall reduction
in CO2 emissions of all the scenarios considered by the APWG study, since lower cost
improvements were more likely to be adopted.