China's greenhouse gas emissions have caught up with the United
States and will not any fall any time soon, a top Chinese official
said, while warning of a huge economic blow from global
warming.
The comments from Xie Zhenhua, a deputy chief of China's National
Development and Reform Commission who steers climate change policy,
marked a new official acknowledgement that China may be the world's
worst offender.
Many foreign experts believe China's output of carbon dioxide, the
main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, has already
outstripped the United States, for over a century the world's
biggest emitter.
Until now, however, Chinese officials have hedged on the issue. And
Xie would not give any specific numbers.
"Based on information we have at hand, our total emissions are
about the same as the United States," he told a news conference to
release a government paper on climate change.
"Whether or not we have surpassed the United States is not in
itself important," he added, noting that rich countries had
produced the majority of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere
during the course of their industrialisation.
Official acknowledgement that China is the biggest emitter is
unlikely to shift Beijing's position on climate change, but it may
add international pressure on it as the world enters an intense
phase of negotiations over a new global warming pact.
The US Oak Ridge National Laboratory has estimated the United
States emitted 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon from burning fossil
fuels in 2007, compared to China's 1.8 billion tonnes.
Total world emissions were about 8.5 billion tonnes.
Uneasy imperatives
Beijing has said it wants to combat climate change yet ensure
China's economic take-off is not dragged down, and Xie's comments
and the government white paper reflected the uneasy fit between
those concerns.
China faces shrinking harvests, worsening droughts in some regions,
worsening floods in others, and melting glaciers as average global
temperatures rise, the report warns.
"Climate change has already brought real threats to China's
ecological system and economic and social development," said
Xie.
But the report released by Xie also says China will nonetheless
increase emissions of carbon dioxide, as it seeks to lift hundreds
of millions of its poor into prosperity.
"China will strive for rational growth of energy demand," it
states.
"However, its coal-dominated energy mix cannot be substantially changed in the near future, thus making the control of greenhouse gases rather difficult."
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap solar radiation, threatening to heat the atmosphere to levels that scientists warn could unleash disastrous disruption.
This will "cause huge losses to the national economy", the paper
states.
Beijing issues white papers to spell out policies on controversial
topics, and this one will be part of China's arguments as it heads
into intense negotiations.
China will be at the heart of efforts to forge a successor to the
current Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.
Governments hope to reach agreement by the end of 2009.
Under the current Protocol, a UN-led pact, poor nations do not
assume targets to cap emissions.
But the European Union wants developing nations to sign on to
firmer goals, and Washington has refused to ratify Kyoto partly
because it says the treaty is ineffective without Beijing's
acceptance of mandatory caps.
Xie pointed out that China's per capita emissions of its 1.3
billion people remain much lower than in rich countries, and about
a fifth of the US average per person.
On Tuesday, a Chinese official said his government would next week
issue a proposal for rich countries to dramatically increase flows
of greenhouse gas-fighting technology to poor ones.
He said developed countries should devote one percent of their
economic worth to helping developing countries combat climate
change.
Xie offered a more precise estimate of how much money China expects
rich countries to give poor ones to fight climate change.
"I think it would be okay if at least 0.7% of developed countries'
GDPs is used to help developing countries respond to climate
change," he said.
This would mean a total $284 billion a year if all members of the
OECD (Organisation for Co-operation and Economic Development) paid
up based on the size of their economies in 2007.
