China and climate change: in the eye of the storm?

China has a complex relationship

with climate change.

It sees carbon emission restrictions

as a threat to its development.

But its leaders

also know that China would be

especially hard-hit

by the climate change consequences.

China is at this moment

already the main carbon emitter

and it’s going to increase

even in the next decades.

Fighting climate change,

there is no doubt this is important.

Despite claims of agreement on the

principles of fighting climate change,

the devil remains in the detail.

Basically, in principle, China

and the other countries in the world,

we have no difference.

China, we agree

to deal with climate change

in a cooperative way.

But sometimes

we have some disagreements.

The key disagreements are the ways.

How to deal with it.

The Copenhagen conference

proved how difficult it is

to iron out those details.

The time

for formal statements is over.

The time for restating

well-known positions is past.

The time has come

to reach out to each other.

What really played

an important role at the summit

is the fact that China does not want

to constrain its growth with curbs.

It has accepted to make its own

industry 45% more efficient by 2020

in order to reduce emissions,

but it sees the, especially European,

attempts to impose 20% fixed curbs

as a kind of an effort to, let’s say,

subtly protect their own economy

and to somehow suffocate

the growth of developing countries.

The Western countries are

accustomed to link what he will do,

with the other countries.

For example,

the European Union always said:

We have set up

target limits for the emissions.

If we do this,

for the EU and the United States,

China, you have to do this.

China is also aware that it is seen

as negotiating not just for itself,

but also for many

developing countries and economies.

Beijing continues

to adhere a lot of importance

to its traditional alliance

with the third world.

And a kind of championing

and muscle-flexing

within the framework

of the Copenhagen summit shows

that this alliance is still

very important for the Chinese.

China’s rate of growth is a major

concern of global climate change.

It consistently hits

8 to 9 percent GDP growth a year,

produces the most cars in the world

and opens a new,

coal-fired power station every week.

The development cannot be stopped.

We have to find the good ways

to do the environment protection

on the one hand,

and on the other hand

to develop the Chinese economy,

to improve the life standard

for the poor people,

especially the people living in rural

places, in remote places in China.

But will local governments follow

environmental orders from Beijing?

Local governments,

provincial governments, of course,

are interested in uplifting,

developing their economies

and they’ll do anything

to keep those factories going,

even in the face

of public anxiety about pollution,

or environmental toxic hazards,

et cetera.

So far, Beijing seems to have been

relatively clear and firm in this area.

We should not underestimate

the control of Beijing

over provincial governments.

In the last two years the government

has imposed evaluation criteria

on all its provincial cadres. So rather

than just looking at GDP growth

they now also look at

how clean local economies get.

China has a population

of 1.3 billion people

and it seems

that more and more people

are becoming aware

of environmental issues.

If you go to China,

even the farmers in remote places,

they know environmental protection.

What’s environmental protection?

What does it mean?

The local farmers know.

Oh, the water is polluted.

The fish died

because of polluted water.

The air is polluted.

It is not fresh compared with the air,

maybe 20 years ago.

In regard to climate change

I don’t tend to be

that critical on China’s position.

If you see what the Chinese

government has been doing

to curb carbon emissions,

it’s impressive.

China is opening a lot of new

coal plants to generate electricity

but it’s closing down 4 old ones

every week to make it more efficient.

If you look, for example,

at the level of investment

in research and development

or clean energy technologies,

it has reached a level that is higher

than the 27 European Member States.

Green technology and the money

to pay for it are key to China’s stance.

This was clearly seen in Copenhagen.

No, I think

the financial issue is very important.

Whatever initiative these countries

will announce, is a good step.

For the other two key issues,

the money and the technology,

all these two key elements are

controlled by the Western countries.

The developed countries should take

their historical responsibilities.

And we hope that

the developed countries will at least

take out more money

to put it in one funding

to help the developing countries to...

...fight against the climate change.

A clear lesson from

climate change negotiations so far

is that China cannot have

a ‘one size fits all’ policy.

The needs of its poor regions

and its cities differ

from the needs

of its economy and its environment.

This could be factored in to the next

negotiations at the end of 2010.

There are still many extremely

poorly developed provinces,

especially in the hinterland,

that will have a lot of difficulties

with the new guidelines,

as they are still expected

to start their industrialisation,

they are obviously going

pollute more than Guangdong

which wants

to become the greenest province,

and one of the greenest

regions in entire Asia.

Just before

the Copenhagen conference

the Chinese side already declared

very clear: We want success.

But this is just the beginning

of the climate change campaign.

Maybe next time all the countries

will have more experience

to think about how to do next.