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China Says Nations Have a 'Common Duty' on Climate (Update1)
2010-11-03 02:31:38.966 GMT
(Updates with official's comments in fourth paragraph.)
By John Duce
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese climate change official
said countries share "a common duty and responsibility" to
tackle the issue, even in the absence of an international
agreement on what steps to take.
Nations shouldn't delay acting on climate change, Sun Zhen,
deputy general counsel at the National Development and Reform
Commission's department of climate change, said at a global
warming forum in Hong Kong today. "Evidence of the effects of
climate change is there," he said.
Talks in China aimed at reaching an agreement to mitigate
climate change ended last month with little sign the world's
biggest greenhouse gas emitters are resolving their differences.
The U.S. wants China and some larger developing countries to
accept international scrutiny of their measures to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. China said at the Tianjin meeting
richer nations should pledge deeper emissions cuts before
developing nations are asked to do more.
"Developed countries should accept their historic
responsibilities over climate change," Sun said today.
The effects of climate change are visible in Hong Kong, the
city's environment secretary, Edward Yau, said at the forum.
"There is more torrential rain in evidence." Public
consultation has started on plans to reduce the emission of
greenhouse gases, linked to global warming, he said.
Cancun Talks
The discussions in Tianjin were the last formal gathering
before envoys meet in Cancun, Mexico, for Nov. 29 to Dec. 10
talks to help reach an agreement that the UN says is unlikely
this year.
China has pledged to cut its output of carbon dioxide per
unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 from
2005 levels. The nation, the world's biggest polluter, is also
discussing rules to implement a domestic carbon-trading market
to reduce emissions and promote clean-energy industries, an
official said last month.
Envoys at Cancun may agree on frameworks to help mainly
developing countries cope with the effects of global warming and
put systems in place to begin measuring and slowing emissions of
greenhouse gases, a senior European Union official said last
month.
The Tianjin talks made "some progress," Sun said, without
elaborating. He said he hoped the parties at Cancun would come
to an agreement.
At the United Nations summit on climate change last,
negotiators failed to reach a binding deal to set a framework
for greenhouse-gas reduction when the Kyoto Protocol expires in
2012. Instead, they settled for a political accord calling for
$100 billion a year by 2020 to fund climate efforts in poorer
nations. They also vowed to stop global temperature increases at
2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-
industrial times.
"Time is running short," Martin Lees, a former senior
climate change adviser to the Chinese government, told the
forum. "We are approaching various tipping points. We have
limited time to avoid irreversible environmental breakdowns."
For Related News and Information:
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--Editors: John Viljoen, Clyde Russell.
To contact the reporter on this story:
John Duce in Hong Kong at +852-2977-2237 or
jduce1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Amit Prakash at +65-6212-1167 or aprakash1@bloomberg.net
