APEC, G20, COP21: the year of climate solutions?

This year, China hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group. Australia is president of the Group of 20 (G20).

During their tenures, China and Australia want to encourage economic growth, infrastructure investment, cross-border integration and market efficiency.

2014: Year of a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure?

This year's APEC and G20 meetings could lay the foundations for a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure.

These could be achieved through a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure of cross-border power lines, natural gas pipelines and fiber optic cables.

These would stretch from China, Japan and South Korea through Southeast Asia to Australia.

Markets could then pick the low-cost, low-emission energy winners through transparent pricing.

A Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure represents the logical end point of already-proposed Asian infrastructure projects.

These include the Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline, Trans-ASEAN Electricity Grid, the East Asian Grid, Gobitec, Palapa Ring and others.

In becoming the world's largest economic bloc in coming years, Asia must build out trillions of dollars of new infrastructure.

This could be funded through regional carbon markets supplemented by multilateral investment organizations and creation of oil and gas Joint Development Areas.