China balks at emissions caps

China's first plan to confront climate change cites growth as its top priority.

from the June 5, 2007 edition

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'Unshirkable primary responsibility'

Mr. Ma, head of China's National Development and Reform Commission, insisted that developed nations bear "the unshirkable primary responsibility for climate change," since they have historically pumped almost all the greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere. "They must undertake the principle efforts to combat" global warming, he argued.

Developing countries such as China, he said, need "space for development. It is neither fair nor acceptable to us to impose too early, too abruptly, and too bluntly measures that one would ask of developed countries."

Quantifiable limits on CO2 emissions, he added, "would hamper their efforts to achieve industrialization. It is quite inevitable that during this stage, China's energy consumption and CO2 emissions will be quite high."

At the same time, he pointed out, China's greenhouse-gas emissions per head of population is about one-fifth of the US rate, and one third of the average in developed countries.

Beyond these disclaimers, however, the plan shows that "Beijing is getting to grips with what climate change means for China and what China means for climate change," says the diplomat. Even though, as a developing country, China is not obliged by the Kyoto Protocol to reduce its CO2 output, "it is putting itself in a positive frame" he adds.

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