UN: China could lead climate change fight
Yvo de Boer yesterday said China is leaping ahead of the US with domestic plans for more energy efficiency, renewable sources of power, cuts in vehicle pollution and closures of dirty plants.
“China and India haveannounced very ambitious national climate change plans. In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change,” de Boer said. “The big question mark is the US.”
He spoke ahead of today’s UN summit of 100 world leaders in New York intended to rally momentum for crafting a new global climate pact at Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
Former president George Bush had rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting global emissions of warming gases based on its exclusion of major developing nations like China and India.
Chinese President Hu Jintao will announce new plans to fight global warming at a UN summit on climate change today. China already has said it is seeking to use 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
China and the US together account for about 40% of all the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other industrial warming gases.
De Boer said he also was encouraged by Japan’s new goal of a 25% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.
US President Barack Obama has been trying to build momentum for a new climate pact to succeed the Kyoto accord that required mandatory cuts in atmospheric warming gases but expires at the end of 2012. His administration has announced a target of returning to 1990 levels of greenhouse emissions by 2020. But with Congress moving slowly on a measure to curb emissions, the US could soon find itself with little influence when 120 countries convene in Copenhagen.
The UN summit on climate change today and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh at the end of this week are intended to add pressure on the US and other richnations to commit to cuts and cough up billions of dollars to help developing nations install new technologies and take other actions to adapt to climate change.
The House passed a bill this year that would set the United States’ first federal mandatory limits on greenhouse gases. Factories, power plants and other sources would be required to cut emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83% by mid-century.
The EU is urging other rich countries to match its pledge to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020.
A new climate report released yesterday by a climate initiative led by former British prime minister Tony Blair says 10 million jobs could be created by 2020, if developing nations agree to big cuts in greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, British PM Gordon Brown says world leaders must attend a summit in Copenhagen aimed at striking a global agreement on climate change.
In an article for Newsweek yesterday, Brown said he will attend the talks on December 7 to push for a deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Environment ministers are scheduled to be the highest-ranking officials there.
But Brown says it needs the presence of national leaders. He says there is a “grave danger” a deal may not be agreed.
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