A report released this week at the UN Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) in Nairobi, Kenya countered claims that developing countries like China are not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

 

The report titled "Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Brazil, China and India: Scenarios and Opportunities Through 2025" also finds that 70 percent of China's unilateral emission reductions had been financed domestically.

 

"Our analysis shows the actions China and Brazil are taking will result in emissions cut to levels comparable to what the US is projected to do under its voluntary target by 2010 and also equal to nearly 40 percent of what the EU will do by 2010," said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP), a US-based think-tank that produced the report.

 

Chinese officials heralded the report's findings.

 

"The results of this project and our continued work with CCAP to find win-win opportunities for climate policy in China will be very important in helping us move forward," said Lu Xuedu, deputy director of China's Office of Global Environmental Affairs under the Ministry of Science and Technology. "The more developed countries do, the more developing countries will follow."

 

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also noted China's contribution to the global effort to halt climate change.

 

"Rapidly growing economies like China have been increasingly successful in decoupling economic growth from energy use, thereby reducing the emission intensities of their economies," he told the conference on Wednesday.

 

More than 6,000 people, including 100 cabinet ministers from around the world, participated in the two-week conference that is scheduled to end today.

 

A top Chinese official on Wednesday reiterated China's commitment to addressing the threat posed by climate change. Jiang Weixin, head of the Chinese delegation, said China would seek international cooperation in line with the principles and framework of the UNCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.

 

Jiang, who is also vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the country had implemented several policies aimed at reducing GHGs.

 

In the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) China has made controlling GHG emissions a priority. It also calls for a 20-percent reduction in energy consumption for per unit of gross domestic product based on the 2005 level. 

  

(China Daily November 17, 2006)