China will continue urging for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol at next week's climate change talks in Doha, but has ruled out joining a multi-party carbon trading market for now, Beijing's top climate negotiator said Wednesday.
China
will
continue urging for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol at next week's climate
change talks in
Doha
, but
has ruled out joining a multi-party carbon trading market for now,
Beijing
's top
climate negotiator said Wednesday.
Xie Zhenhua said he hopes the protocol, in which developed countries agree to
binding targets to cut carbon emissions, will be extended through 2020, after
which a new global climate-control treaty could go into effect.
"We would like to see a legally binding second commitment period for the
Kyoto Protocol, and for those [developed countries] who won't join the treaty,
we hope they undertake comparable emissions cuts that abide by the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change," Mr. Xie, who is vice
chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top
economic planning body, said at a news conference in Beijing.
China
has long
tried to negotiate an extension to the Kyoto Protocol, and Mr. Xie's views echo
those of
India
. The
South Asian country's top climate negotiator said Tuesday that it would join
other developing countries such as
China
,
Brazil
and
South
Africa
to negotiate an extension to
the Kyoto Protocol.
The protocol, adopted in 1997, set out legally binding emission-reduction
targets for developed countries, but excluded developing ones such as
China
. The
U.S.
never
ratified the pact.
Mr. Xie stopped short of saying that
China
could
commit to legally binding targets for emissions cuts after 2020, but said the
country was "open to negotiations."
Mr. Xie defended
China
's
record on climate control, saying the country reached its goal to cut carbon
intensity by 20% between 2006 and 2010 and is on its way to meeting a goal of
reducing carbon intensity by 17% between 2011 and 2015.
By 2020,
China
plans
to further reduce its carbon intensity by up to 45% from 2005 levels. Carbon
intensity is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic
product.
As part of the efforts to reduce emissions,
China
in
November began rolling out a potentially nationwide carbon-trading scheme in
seven provinces and cities. However, it isn't ready to join a global carbon-trading
market, Mr. Xie said. "
Australia
, the
European Union and the
U.S.
have
approached us to participate in a bilateral or regional carbon-trading market,
but I think at this stage,
China
will
first focus on its domestic market."
Mr. Xie acknowledged that
China
is
the largest carbon emitter in the world and that its emissions are rapidly
rising due to its economic growth. However,
China
's
carbon intensity levels are still on par with other countries, he said.
Separately,
China
is
set to reform its consumption and resource tax systems with environmental goals
in mind, according to
China
's
finance minister Xie Xuren.
China
will
begin levying consumption taxes on resource-intensive and polluting goods, and
it will include coal and water in a new resource-tax system, said Mr. Xie, the
finance minister, in an article posted Wednesday on the finance ministry's
website. He didn't provide a specific time frame for the tax changes.
Meanwhile,
China
's
leadership has set ambitious targets to cap domestic coal consumption in order
to reduce pollution and cut emissions.
However, a recent study from the World Resources Institute showed that a total
of 363 coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 558,000 megawatts
are currently being proposed by Chinese companies, mainly state-owned. That is
close to one-third of all coal-fired power plants currently being planned
worldwide, the study said.
While it remains uncertain that all of these will be realized as public
opposition is increasing and many approved projects have already been delayed,
the number of proposed plants fits poorly into
China
's
plans to curb emissions.
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