China promises to control greenhouse gases
China promised today to better control emissions of greenhouse gases, unveiling a new national programme to combat global warming, but rejected mandatory caps on emissions it said was unfair to developing countries.
The programme offered few new concrete targets for reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to global warming.
But the plan outlined steps China would take to meet a previously announced government goal of improving overall energy efficiency by 20% in 2010 over 2005’s level.
One of China’s chief objectives is “to make significant achievements in controlling greenhouse gas emissions”, said the report released by the National Development and Reform Commission, the economic planning agency.
Among the measures the government has called for are stepped-up efforts to put the hard-charging but inefficient economy on a more sustainable footing, to research and deploy new energy-saving technologies and to plant more trees.
Given an economy that has been growing at better than 9% annually over the past 25 years, the plan’s overall effect, if implemented, would be to slow the increase in greenhouse gases, not reduce their absolute amount.
China has fallen under increasing pressure internationally to take more forceful measures to curb releases of greenhouse gases.
The country relies on coal – among the dirtiest of fuels – to meet two-thirds of its energy needs and is projected to surpass the US as the world’s No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases sometimes in the next two years.
In explaining the new programme, the head of China’s planning agency, Ma Kai, said global warming was largely caused by 200 years of unrestrained industrialisation by the West, and it would be unfair to impose mandatory emissions caps on China and other developing nations.
“This would hinder the development of developing countries and hamper their industrialisation,” Ma said.
The report’s release seemed in part an attempt to pre-empt criticism of China when President Hu Jintao attends an expanded summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in Germany on Friday. The summit will feature a session on global warming.
