WEEK-LONG talks in China to come up with a global deal to help combat climate change have just got under way, but already the developing world contingent is urging the rich world to do more.
“The emissions targets of developed countries should be dramatically raised,” Su Wei, head of the climate change office at China’s National Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference at the talks in the northern city of Tianjin, to “create the room necessary for developing countries’ emissions”.
It’s a familiar theme in climate change talks, which are regularly derailed by political rows between developing countries and wealthy nations.
Negotiators from 177 governments are meeting to hammer out some kind of agreement, or at least a signpost towards an agreement, on what should follow the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol – the key UN treaty on fighting global warming – which expires in 2012.
Mr Su praised the offer by rich nations to cut emissions as part of the Copenhagen Accord, which limits global warming to below 2 degrees from pre-industrial levels but doesn’t specify a date.
“But these goals are certainly still far removed from the expectations of developing countries and from what is required according to science,” he said.
The UN says the current targets would not prevent a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees, which the EU and some experts have defined as the threshold of dangerous climate change, auguring worsening droughts, floods and rising sea levels.
As the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, which scientists say causes global warming, some say China is an awkward position when it comes to calling for others to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. However, China argues that wealthy countries have much higher emissions per head of population and needed to accommodate emerging economies.
The talks are being organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.