As a Sunday target date approaches for
countries to submit
to the United Nations their plans for fighting climate
change, China
is banding together with other major developing nations to stress
that only the wealthier countries need to make internationally
binding commitments.
So while China, the world’s largest emitter
of greenhouse gases, might put down in writing its targets for
slowing the growth of emissions, it will make clear that those
efforts are voluntary steps it plans to take domestically that should
not imply a binding international commitment.
The distinction reflects China’s strong desire to cast climate
change policy as a sovereignty issue in the aftermath of rancorous
negotiations last month at the environmental summit meeting in
Copenhagen. It
says developed nations, which emitted carbon dioxide without
restriction over many decades of industrialization, cannot force
developing countries to submit to international policies or
regulations.
China is standing by targets it announced before Copenhagen, but
previous climate change treaties say targets of developing countries
are not internationally binding, said Pan Jiahua, an economics
professor who advises the Chinese negotiating team. "On this
China will stand firm."
This position could draw further criticisms from Western
politicians who already blame China for weakening the final accord at
Copenhagen. In the United States Congress, the chances that lawmakers
will pass climate legislation this year are slim, in part because
some lawmakers say China and India, where carbon emissions are rising
the fastest, are giving much higher priority to maintaining economic
growth than to fighting climate change.
But even as China sticks to tough diplomatic language,
environmental advocates say it is forging ahead with its own plans to
become more carbon-efficient.
This week, China unveiled a new agency, the National Energy
Commission, headed by Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao, to coordinate energy policy. In December, China, now
considered a leader in developing renewable energy technology,
put more pressure on companies connected to the electric grid to hook
up to renewable energy sources like wind- and solar-power generators.
The United
Nations said that by Jan. 31, countries should approve the
Copenhagen Accord and append their own goals for cutting carbon
emissions or slowing emissions growth by 2020.
American officials have said that they will inscribe a provisional
pledge announced by President
Obama last November that the United States will cut carbon
emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, pending action by
Congress. Other nations demand bolder American cuts.
China, India, Brazil and South Africa said in New Delhi this week
that they would present the United Nations with their “voluntary”
plans on climate change. Voluntary is the operative word; the
countries want to stress that only developed nations should have
binding responsibilities to fight climate change.
“A very big deal is the extent to which you’re doing this
voluntarily,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, a China scholar at the
Brookings
Institution in Washington. “You’ve got to make clear this
isn’t an international obligation, and that you’re doing this
because you’re a good guy.”
To make the divide even clearer, the four countries called for an
“early flow” of an annual $10 billion promised at Copenhagen to
help developing nations combat climate change. Wealthy nations should
begin handing over the money, first to small island nations and
African countries, as “proof of their commitment,” the four major
developing nations said in a statement.
China appears to be emphasizing rich nations’ obligations on
that now partly because Chinese officials felt ambushed at
Copenhagen, especially over Western demands that China submit to an
international system for monitoring and verifying emissions cuts.
China is also worried about losing the support of smaller
developing nations because some of them rejected China’s positions
at Copenhagen. This month when Yang Jiechi, the Chinese foreign
minister, visited Africa, he made China-Africa cooperation on climate
change a priority in talks.
“I think that the Chinese definitely feel quite beaten up in
Copenhagen,” said Yang Ailun, the climate and energy campaign
manager at Greenpeace
China, “and what’s quite worrying is that there was a sense among
the Chinese officials that, ‘Well, maybe we should just come to
focus on our own domestic energy and domestic issues.’”
The government’s lead negotiator, Su Wei, said at a Chinese
academic forum in December that the United States and European
countries had played “tricks” in Copenhagen to heap pressure on
China, according to a government-run Web site.
At the climate talks, frustration by the Chinese burst into the
open when Xie Zhenhua, the top Chinese climate official, yelled and
wagged his finger at Mr. Obama, say conference attendees. Mr. Wen,
the prime minister, told the interpreter to ignore Mr. Xie’s
remarks — a sign of the discord that attendees said plagued the
Chinese ranks.
Chinese officials were ill prepared to offer any concessions. They
had gone to Copenhagen thinking that other nations would be satisfied
with the announcement that China planned to cut carbon emissions per
unit of economic growth, so-called carbon intensity, by 40 to 45
percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
China and India have long rejected pledging to cut absolute
emissions. Instead, they promise they can slow the growth of
emissions while sustaining booming economies. Cutting carbon
intensity will not reduce China’s emissions; some analysts predict
emissions could grow by up to 90 percent from 2005 to 2020.
Chinese officials insist the carbon intensity cut will require
ambitious measures. But Michael A. Levi, a climate change expert at
the Council
on Foreign Relations in New York, said China’s carbon intensity
goal did
not deviate greatly from what he called “business as usual,”
reductions likely to occur under policies already put in place by
2009. The effort is important, he said, but “does not indicate any
new decision to fundamentally change course in the future.”
Some environmentalists have praised China’s goal and say China
will have to make great efforts to achieve it. Barbara Finamore, who
heads the China program at the Natural
Resources Defense Council, based in Washington, said the fact
that China put in place relatively progressive policies before
Copenhagen did not mean those policies should be considered “business
as usual.”
At Copenhagen, China also conceded at the final session to
language that would require countries to report their carbon
reduction numbers for international analysis. Earlier in December in
Beijing, President Hu
Jintao trumpeted China’s opposition to stringent international
monitoring, calling it a “vital interest” on which China would
not compromise, said an editor at a Communist Party newspaper.
(
from the New York
Times)