Environment

China tells nations to cut their emissions by 40 percent

by Amy Judd | May 21, 2009 at 09:56 am

218 views | 28 Recommendations | 6 comments

China has told other rich nations that they should cut their emssions by at least 40 percent by 2020, as part of the new climate change developments ahead of the Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December.

Chinese officials stated that the wealthy nations must be the ones to lead the way on changing emissions, and that developed countries should give 0.5 to 1 percent of the annual economic growth to help under-developed nations deal with global warming and slow greenhouse gas emissions.

The Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen this year will decide on new measures to build on the current Kyoto Protocol.

Mr de Boer, the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said that he is hopeful about the developments leading up the to conference this December.

"We have an almost complete list of industrialised nations' pledges to cut emissions after 2012, so governments can see now, more clearly, where they are in comparison to each other, and can build a higher ambition on that basis," he said.

He added that the US had committed to a Copenhagen agreement and a "clean energy future".

"In response to the financial crisis, many national stimulus packages have been launched that include green economic objectives," he added.

"With only 200 days before Copenhagen, time gets tighter but the world is not standing still on climate change."

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Jarrett Martineau

at 10:01 on May 21st, 2009

And what forward-thinking environmental commitments is China making, we might well ask, that gives them the privilege of demanding that other countries cut their emissions?

To quote the New York Times: "China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet."

Roberto Alvarez-Galloso

at 10:14 on May 21st, 2009

Great article, thanks for sharing.

M-J

at 13:44 on May 21st, 2009

Thanks for the article. While it does seem ironic that China are the ones to demand this, at least it seems to be high on the agenda for many countries at the moment.

A. Tran

at 16:04 on May 21st, 2009

It's a bit ironic that China has proposed these measures since the country has now surpassed the US as the world's polluter.

China has steadfastly resisted any mandatory quotas on carbon emissions. The country is widely considered to have surpassed the U.S. as the world's top polluter.

But the changed U.S. position is isolating China, which has argued that the U.S. should take steps before poorer nations do. The U.S.'s new policy also raises the idea of a possible carbon tax on Chinese imports into the U.S. in order to appease U.S. manufacturers' complaints that Chinese goods could have an unfair advantage if not subjected to costly limits on greenhouse gasses.

India has also refused to accept any carbon caps, arguing like China that such caps would limit economic growth and unfairly penalize late-developing nations.

Uwe Paschen

at 16:19 on May 21st, 2009

China is correct with this statement and nothing will change if the Rich Industrial Nations do not lead by example rather then "Do has we say, not has we do."

China per Capita is of all the industrial nations the one polluting the least, would it pollute as the US do for instance per Capita then its pollution would be 280 times greater then it is now.

China does invest more in renewable energies for the last decade per Capita then the US did until now.

We have to look at each countries pollution on a per capita level in order to put it back into perspective and give us the real pollution problems or culprits.

Per Capita the US lead the way, followed by Canada.

This can be verified with the latest UN Environmental Reports and the IPCC report.