中國即將在二ｏｏ九超過美國，成為全球第一大二氧化炭排放國，但是，中國仍不願採取強制降低排量的措施。
Beijing climate-change strategy has no emission caps
By Jim Yardley Published: June 4, 2007
BEIJING: China released its first comprehensive strategy for addressing climate change Monday, a plan that calls for improving energy efficiency and controlling greenhouse gas emissions but rejects mandatory caps on emissions that could harm the country’s sizzling economy.
"Our general stance is that China will not commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets, but that does not mean we will not assume responsibilities in responding to climate change," said Ma Kai, head of China’s powerful economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission.
The 62-page report Ma introduced is dense with figures and programs on subjects like reforestation, public education and improving regulatory enforcement. But in broad terms, the plan merely restated Beijing’s position that mandatory emissions caps are unfair to China and other developing countries still trying to modernize and improve living standards.
China, which has the world’s fastest-growing major economy, had been projected to surpass the United States by 2009 or 2010 as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which scientists say cause global warming. But its high-polluting economy is growing so rapidly that the chief economist for the International Energy Agency is now predicting that the country could become the global emissions leader as soon as this year.
The IEA economist also projected that within 25 years, China’s total emissions could be double the combined emissions output of the world’s richest nations - including the United States, European Union, Japan and others - if it does not restrain its current rate of emissions growth
This week, President Hu Jintao is scheduled to join President George W. Bush and other world leaders in Germany at an expanded meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations. Global warming is on the agenda.
Bush has been regularly criticized for a lack of action on global warming, but last Friday he proposed a new negotiating framework for the 15 countries that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions. Each country would establish its own targets and plan to reduce emissions in the next 10 or 20 years, while working as a group to set a long-term global goal.
At his news conference Monday, Ma applauded Bush’s proposal but said that such a meeting should complement, not replace, the existing framework, including the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, sponsored by the United Nations.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect in 2005, industrialized nations are subject to caps on certain industrial emissions, while developing countries, including China and India, are exempt. The Bush administration pulled out of the agreement because it did not include China or India.
Ma used his news conference to restate China’s longstanding position that the developed world, particularly the United States, needed to be the leader on finding a climate change solution because those countries had generated the overwhelming majority of greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. He said China, historically, had produced only a small fraction of the world’s greenhouse gases and that its current per capita emissions equaled roughly one-fifth the rate of the United States.
"The ramifications of limiting the development of developing countries would be even more serious than those from climate change," Ma said.
The centerpiece of China’s approach to controlling emissions is a plan initiated in 2005 that calls for a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2010. Ma noted that China had passed new laws on environmental protection and energy efficiency and that factories across the country were beginning to improve. He said fiscal and tax policies were being revised to reward clean industry and punish energy-intensive, high-polluting factories.
But given China’s high annual rate of economic growth, the program would, at best, slow increases in emissions rather than reduce them. And it is far from certain that China will be able to meet the 20 percent goal.
Under the plan, China should have netted a 4 percent reduction in 2006 in the amount of energy needed to generate each unit of gross domestic product. Instead, environmental officials announced this year that the country had already failed to meet that initial goal.
China is heavily dependent on coal, which currently accounts for roughly 68 percent of its energy. But under the climate change program, China is planning a major expansion of nuclear power, as well as renewable energy sources.
The plan calls for renewable energy to account for 10 percent of the country’s power supply by 2010. China is also in the midst of a nationwide reforestation program to help absorb greenhouse gases.
Ma said China was strongly encouraging domestic research on new clean technologies, but he also called on developed countries to transfer technology, and provide financial assistance, to help developing countries.
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