China would take an active and cooperative attitude to make its
contributions to climate protection, said Su Wei, deputy head of
the Chinese delegation to the two-week UN climate change conference
that concluded on Saturday after adopting a roadmap for
negotiations for a new treaty.
(Front L-R) Executive
Secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change
Conference (UNFCCC) Yvo de Boer, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and President of the
13th session of the Conference of the Parties, Rachmat Witoelar
attend at the UN Climate Change Conference in Nusa Dua, Bali island
December 15, 2007.? [Agencies]
The climate conference adopted on Saturday a plan to negotiate a
new global warming pact, after the United States suddenly reversed
its opposition to a call by developing nations for technological
help to battle rising temperatures.
Upcoming talks, to be completed in 2009, may help determine for
years to come how well the world can control climate change, and
how severe the consequences of global warming will be.
"China is making its efforts to cut its energy consumption per
unit of GDP by 20 percent from 2006 to 2010. The green efforts also
need to be implemented in a verifiable way," he said in a response
to the roadmap requirement that developing countries should
mitigate climate change in a measurable, reportable and verifiable
way.
But Chen Dongmei, director of Climate Change and Energy Program
of WWF China, said how to make it verifiable is a challenge for the
country's current capacity-building in mitigating climate
change.
The US initial opposition to support developing countries in
technology, financing and capability-building in a "measurable,
reportable and verifiable" way had drawn loud boos and sharp
rebukes.
A delegate from Papua New Guinea said: "If you (the US) are not
willing to take the lead, get out of the way!"
And the delegate from South Africa strongly recommended the US
to reconsider their commitment.
"I have attended the UN climate change conferences in the past
four years. I have never seen such a strong push on the US from the
international community," Yu Jie, adviser of China Program of
Heinrich Boell Foundation based in Berlin, told China
Daily.
Su Wei, deputy head of the Chinese delegation to the conference,
said: "If compared the roadmap to a bus, I am glad that finally we
have the US to be one of the passengers. Now we can go ahead."
But Christopher Miller, climate campaigner from Greenpeace
America, said that although the US has become a passenger, it only
buys a developing-country ticket, criticizing the US for
shouldering less responsibility.
Bali Roadmap
With the United States ultimately acknowledging the
groundbreaking concessions by the G77 plus China, a Bali Roadmap by
about 190 countries gathering in Bali, Indonesia, was drawn up on
Saturday afternoon, ushering a new era of further negotiation on
combating climate changes.
"It is a highly compromised agreement," said Meenakshi Raman,
Friends of the Earth International and Malaysia in a news
conference held by environmental non-governmental organizations
soon after the agreement.
For developed countries, including the US, they agreed to
"measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate
mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission
limitation and reduction objectives."
For developing countries, they made compromise to accept the
"measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate
mitigation actions in the context of sustainable development."
To fulfill the mitigation goals, the developing countries called
for supports of technology, financing and capacity-building in a
"measurable, reportable and verifiable" way from the industrialized
countries.
The United States initially rejected the demands, but backed
down after delegates criticized the US stand and urged
reconsideration.
"I think we have come a long way here," said Paula Dobriansky,
head of the US delegation. "In this, the United States is very
committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act
together. We will go forward and join consensus."
Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC said, "We now
have a roadmap, we have an agenda and we have a deadline. But we
also have a huge task ahead of us and time to reach agreement is
extremely short, so we need to move quickly."
European and US envoys ended their duel at about 3 am on
Saturday over the EU's proposal that the Bali roadmap suggested an
ambitious goal for cutting the emissions by industrial nations --
by 25 to 40 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020.
That guideline's specific numbers were eliminated from the text,
but an indirect reference was inserted instead as a footnote.
"The Bush Administration has unscrupulously taken a monkey
wrench to the level of action on climate change that the science
demands," said Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace
international. "They've relegated the science to a footnote."
(China Daily December 16, 2007)
