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    Wen's Challenge on Climate Change Raises Stakes for Bali Talks
    By Ying Lou
    Bloomberg

    Monday 03 December 2007

    Beijing - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's complaint that developed nations must do more to combat climate change highlights a central conflict confronting delegates at Bali talks on global warming that begin today.

    Industrialized countries "must bear more responsibility" on harmful emissions, Wen said in Singapore on Nov. 21. His comments indicate the position China, by some measures the biggest source of carbon dioxide discharges, will take at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

    The U.S. has refused to accept mandatory targets to cut emissions because developing nations including China haven't adopted them. China insists it and other fast-growing economies must be given more leeway on greenhouse gases as they need to consume energy to generate growth and reduce poverty.

    "There's going to be quite a big gap between the kind of progress China puts forward on addressing climate change and what is expected from it," Han Wenke, head of energy research at China's National Development and Reform Commission, said in an interview in Beijing. The commission is the country's top economic planner.

    Environment ministers from about 190 countries are meeting on the Indonesian Island of Bali to discuss an agreement to succeed the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. China passed the U.S. last year to become the world's largest source of carbon dioxide gas, from burning fossil fuels and producing cement, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

    "Earnest" Effort

    China is "earnestly" seeking to address the issue of climate change by curbing energy consumption and emissions, Wen said Nov. 21. The nation has a plan to reduce the amount of energy used to generate each unit of gross domestic product by one-fifth by 2010 from 2005 levels.

    Even so, Chinese officials have argued that their country can't do as much to control global warming as the U.S. or Europe and won't subject themselves to a mandatory target.

    "Even if China's own standards for energy reduction and emission controls coincide with global benchmarks, we still adhere to the principle that no sovereign nation should be forced to accept mandatory measures imposed by another country," Liu Jianchao, a foreign ministry spokesman, said on Nov. 22 in Beijing. "Third-world countries should not be forced to accept any mandatory measures."

    China is a so-called "annex two" country under the Kyoto Protocol and doesn't have to meet mandatory emissions reduction targets like developed nations. The U.S. has cited China as the reason for not adopting mandatory caps.

    "Hide and Seek"

    "It's a game of hide and seek now," said Lo Sze Ping, campaign director of Greenpeace China. "The U.S. is trying to hide behind China and China is trying to hide behind the U.S. This kind of attitude is not going to help us avoid disastrous climate change."

    Still, China is more aggressive and appears more serious than the U.S. in tackling climate change, Lo said.

    The country will use hydropower, nuclear energy, biomass fuels and natural gas to help cut 950 million metric tons of greenhouse gas output by 2010, Ma Kai, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning body, said June 4, when he presented a 62-page National Climate Change Program.

    China burns coal to generate 78 percent of the electricity used in the world's biggest energy consuming nation after the U.S. Pressure to curb emissions conflicts increased demand for power generation in an economy that's growing faster than any other major market.

    The country's power demand may rise 13.5 percent next year, the State Grid Corp. of China said Nov. 12.

    Most developing countries "are in the process of industrialization and urbanization, and they face the arduous task of eliminating poverty," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui said on Nov. 9 in Beijing. "Their need for increased energy and greenhouse gas emissions is inevitable, and they need a reasonable process of continued growth."