Taking Responsibility For Climate Change

By DING YING& HU YUE

Taking Responsibility For Climate Change

By DING YING& HU YUE

The Cancun conference still tries to decide the future situation in dealing with emissions

If developed countries cannot make decisions and take practical moves to take responsibilities and help developing countries, the tropical scenery of Cancun won’t help in reaching a consensus among participating nations.

The Cancun climate change conference opened on November 29 in the Mexican coastal city. About 25,000 officials, researchers, entrepreneurs and activists from 194 countries gathered in the hope of putting together a legally binding treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

Chinese observers believe there are still many obstacles in the way of the negotiations. They say developed countries should set a good example to developing countries on the climate change issue, because developing countries cannot take on impractical carbon emissions reductions responsibilities beyond their development level.

China’s contribution and decision

China has been under heavy pressure to reduce carbon emissions in recent years. With small oil reserves but ample coal,the country traditionally maintains an energy structure of coal making up two thirds of its energy consumption, which leads to higher carbon emissions.

The developed countries only see the large amount of China’s carbon emissions,but they refuse to connect it to its huge population, energy structure and development stage, said Wang Ruibin, an expert on climate change from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS).

Wang said China’s present annual carbon emissions, 6.017 billion tons, have exceeded those of the United States, which is 5.902 billion tons. It now maintains the fastest economic development speed in the world. Even if China’s annual economic growth decreases to 2.8 percent, its carbon emissions will reach 11.7 billion tons by 2030, calculated at the current level.

GREEN HOPE: Greenpeace’s hot air balloon flies over the Mayan City of Chichen Itza in Mexico’s Cancun on November 28

Remaining at its present rapid industrialization and urbanization rate of development,China will accumulatively consume large amounts of energy and carbon on infrastructure facilities such as highways, railways,urban infrastructure and buildings, while developed countries have already passed this period of development.

If China stays at an annual urbanization growth rate of 1 percent, it will add 1.4 million urban residents every year. This number is equal to the population of a mid-sized European country. But, Wang said, unlike developed countries’ life styles, most of China’s carbon emissions generally are in accordance with their basic needs, a big difference to developed countries’ waste.

C a r b o n e m i ssions are an essential condition of human production, and maintaining proper carbon emissions is one of humanity’s basic living rights.

China has never tried to shed the carbon emissions reduction responsibilities it should undertake, but meanwhile, it cannot make promises overreaching its ability to deal with the issue. In November 2009, China promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, while increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15 percent by 2020.

X i e Z h e n h u a,Vice Chairman of the National Development a n d R e f o r m Commission (NDRC),said great efforts had been made by China in energy saving and greenhouse gas emissions reductions in recent years.

During the 11th Five-Year (2005-10)Plan period, China’s investment in energysaving and emissionsreduction projects reached about 2 trillion yuan ($301 billion), among which more than 200 billion yuan ($30 billion) came from the Chinese Government, say NDRC statistics.

Xie said it was likely China has cut emissions of carbon dioxide by about 1.5 billion tons because of energy-saving and emissions-reduction investments during the 2005-10 period. “The size of emissions reduction is greater than any other country in the world,” he said. “This is China’s contribution to preventing global climate change.”

China will resort to legal, technical and fi nancial measures for greater progress in energy saving and emissions reduction over the next fi ve years, Xie said. China would make energy savings increasingly compulsory for enterprises, instead of simply persuading them to do so. Strict evaluation systems would be established and laws would be enforced to make enterprises accountable for goals of energy saving and emissions reduction.

Su Wei, deputy head of the Chinese Delegation to Cancun and Director General of the Climate Change Department of the NDRC, said China would continue to stick to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Roadmap.He said he hoped the meeting in Cancun would build on past achievements and yield positive results in all related fi elds.

China expected the ongoing UN climate change conference to produce balanced progress,especially on four core issues of mitigation, adaptation, financial support and technology transfer.

“Cancun is an important step in the international process of dealing with climate change,” Su said. The conference could “bear real fruit” on the four key issues and lay a solid foundation for future negotiations and the final achievement of a legally binding treaty.

“I am against bargaining over the climate change issue. Each party should be clear about its duty and try its best on the basis of its own capability to handle the grave challenge to all of mankind,” Su said.

Developed countries should take the major responsibility for climate change and shoulder their due obligations, as unrestrained emissions during their 200-year industrialization process was largely to blame for the global warming,he said.

China’s stand basically represents those of the developing countries.

The developed world should take the lead in cutting emissions due to their historic responsibility for climate change,Sergio B. Serra, Brazilian Ambassador for Climate Change, toldBeijing Reviewin Cancun.

Meanwhile, Brazil appreciates the constructive role that China has played in the negotiations and voluntary efforts of the country to cut emissions, he said.

Obstacles and solutions

Although most countries in the world have realized the importance of carbon emissions reduction to climate changes, experts were conservatively optimistic about the Cancun conference.

Wang from the CIIS said the current divisions on climate change would be hard to break. He listed three obstacles to this situation.

CHINA’S STANCE: Su Wei, deputy head of the Chinese Delegation and Director General of the Climate Change Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, answers journalists’ questions at the Cancun conference on November 29

First, last year’s Copenhagen conference failed to reach a clear goal. Participating countries did not set a mid-term carbon emissions reduction target by 2020, nor was a long-term target by 2050 set for developed countries in the resolution of the UN Climate Change Negotiations. The resolution also did not clearly set regulations on capital support and technology transfer issues, the biggest concerns of developing countries.

Second, mutual trust between developed and developing countries was ruined during the Copenhagen conference because of the big gap between the two groups’ stances,probably negating any agreement at Cancun.

Wang said participants should be practical and try to deal with simpler problems such as capital, forestry and technology transfer, in which there was greater understanding between countries.

Third, the major negotiators do not want to make unrealistic or grandiose promises because of the slow global economic recovery. This may lead to slow progress of climate negotiations. Wang reiterated developed countries were responsible for the greatest amounts of carbon emissions in history. Their per-capita carbon emissions still remained very high,with most of the emissions produced by Western lifestyles and over consumption, he said.

Developed countries committed the original offenses against the environment during their industrialization, said Yan Xuetong, Director of the Institute of International Studies, Tsinghua University.While they were enjoying the unrestricted privilege of carbon emissions, developing countries barely had any modern industry or transportation, Yan said.

Statistics show among the historical carbon emissions accumulation between 1850 and 2004 of Group Eight (G8) and fi ve developing nations of China, India,Brazil, South Africa and Mexico,China’s emissions contribution covered only 10.8 percent, but the United States covered 40 percent.Besides, China’s historical percapita accumulated contribution rate is only 1 percent, while that of the United States is 21.3 percent, Canada, 16 percent, and the United Kingdom, 16.4 percent.Currently, per-capita energy consumption of the United States still tops all other countries, and is fi ve times as large as China’s. In the meantime, the United States is the biggest oil consumer in the world with a daily demand for 19 million barrels, double that of China’s.

“Developed countries should take practical moves to atone from their deeds in history instead of shuf fl ing all the responsibilities on to developing countries,” said Yan.

The UN should set several principles to cope with climate change aimed at building a just and rational carbon emissions order. Countries should set principles of reciprocity of rights and duties for carbon emissions through negotiation. Just and rational inspection principles and a widely accepted carbon emissions standard are also crucial, said Yan.

(Reporting from Beijing and Cancun)