(Adds comment from APEC executive director in Singapore)

CANBERRA, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific leaders will be asked to back practical ways for their nations to save energy when they meet at a regional summit in Sydney, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Monday.

Australia will host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit from Sept. 8, and Howard has written to leaders of the group's 21 economies to put climate change at the top of the agenda.

Howard said leaders would be asked to endorse a "long-term aspirational goal" for cutting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, and also look to practical ways of curbing emissions through improved energy efficiency.

"The key task in Sydney is to give political direction to the shape of a future framework for climate change action that is truly global," Howard said in a speech outlining his APEC agenda.

He said leaders were also keen to ensure the importance of forests and better land use, to create carbon sinks, would be included in any future agreements on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

The APEC summit includes the United States and Australia, which have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol setting greenhouse emissions targets for developed countries, as well as China and Indonesia, neither of which is bound by the climate shift pact.

Howard said it was important for future international action on climate change to also allow countries like China and Indonesia to continue to grow.

Indonesia wants to count emission cuts from preservation of its vast carbon-rich peatlands to be eligible for trade under any new agreement on climate change. Carbon savings from forests and peatlands were excluded from the first Kyoto Protocol.

NOT BINDING

Howard has long been a critic of the Kyoto pact because it does not include major developing economies and unfairly punishes energy-rich countries like Australia, a major coal exporter.

"In short, it was a recipe for a structurally flawed and ineffective global response to climate change," Howard said.

A draft leaders' declaration on climate change from the Sydney APEC meeting, obtained by Reuters, says leaders will agree on cuts to energy intensity by at least 25 percent on 2005 levels by 2030.

Leaders would also agree to set up an Asia-Pacific Network for Energy Technology to strengthen and formalise energy research collaboration and coordination, it said.

But whatever is agreed at APEC is not necessarily binding on members.

"APEC is not a negotiation forum," APEC Secretariat Executive Director Colin Heseltine said. "It's not going to negotiate an agreement on climate change."

"It works on the basis of consensus and volunteerism and what is called in APEC 'concerted unilateralism', which basically means member economies will act on and implement decisions as best they can," he told Reuters in an interview in Singapore.

On the other hand, APEC member economies do account for 60 percent of global demand for energy and that is projected to double by 2030 and does have influence on climate change issues, he said.

What APEC can do is build a common position among its 21 member economies that can carry substantial weight in other arenas, he said. (Additional reporting by Bill Tarrant in Singapore)

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