China's Wen hedges on climate change response
Source: Reuters
(Recasts with quotes, details) By Emma Graham-Harrison and Chris Buckley BEIJING, March 16 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday promised a national plan to address climate change but avoided offering emissions caps, speaking after a parliament session where global warming barely scraped on to the agenda. Fast-industrialising China is the world's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, which scientists warn are behind rising average global temperatures that threaten weather havoc. Wen said China was working to reduce its energy use -- the majority of emissions come from burning coal, oil and gas -- and would offer a plan to address climate change. "Although we are a developing country, we have nonetheless formulated a response plan for Chinese climate change based on international treaties concerning greenhouse gas emissions," Wen said. But in a once-a-year news conference, in which every word is carefully chosen, Wen steered clear of concrete commitments. In recent months, world leaders have queued up to call for action on global warming, with even long-time sceptic President George W. Bush raising concerns. But Wen's guarded remarks and the topic's absence from his keynote work report suggested China is wary of tackling the issue even as it moves into the international emissions spotlight. Analysts say that it will be hard to agree on a crucial second round of emissions controls, to replace the current system which expires in 2012, if major developing world emitters like China and India are unwilling to agree to at least some form of limits. China approved of the Kyoto Protocol, which sets greenhouse gas emission limits for developed countries while setting none for poorer, developing countries like China, Wen noted. But he sidestepped a question on whether China -- which may overtake the United States as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide as early as 2009 -- would accept such limits. His terse answer echoed the apparent disinterest of a leadership focused on problems from runaway economic growth to corruption, rural poverty and energy insecurity, despite the world's most populous nation's vulnerability to changing weather. Officials argue that per person China belches out far less of the gases than industrialised nations, and unlike them has little historical responsibility for past emissions. AWARENESS LOW Chinese scientists have said warming could potentially cut grain production by nearly 40 percent, and a vice-premier warned the country this week that higher temperatures could cause disasters that would hurt the economy. But public awareness of climate change and its potential consequences is low in China, where many citizens struggle to deal with more pressing and visible environmental problems like smog and polluted water -- or are simply focused on enjoying newfound prosperity after decades of poverty. "This is a big problem... we should report on it a bit more," Zhao Huayong, president of CCTV and a delegate from Qinghai province, told reporters earlier in the parliament session when asked about domestic media's limited coverage of global warming. "But at present the things that Chinese people worry about, and the problems our foreign friends like Americans or Europeans worry about, differ, because living conditions are different." At the National People's Congress, China's parliament, the topic was notable mostly by its absence. Greenhouse gas emissions appeared only in the glossary of one keynote speech. China's top climate official, who also co-chairs a key U.N. scientific panel on climate change, gave an online interview on the topic but seemed wary of causing alarm. Asked whether the pros of climate change could outweigh the cons for China, Qin Dahe replied with a laugh: "This is a very difficult question to answer... Even the largest problem becomes small when tackled by 1.3 billion people."
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