Progress towards a new global climate agreement has been slow. SPIEGEL spoke with China's head climate negotiator Yu Qingtai about Western responsibility for CO2 emissions in China and frustration in the developing world. SPIEGEL: China is now the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. Is China recognizing its responsibility for climate change? Yu Qingtai: We take climate change very seriously, but don't forget that we are 1.3 billion people. The difference in per-capita emissions between China and the developed nations is still huge. You can't tell Chinese people that being born in China means being allowed just 20 percent or 25 percent of the CO2 emissions allowed somebody born in Europe.
Progress towards a new global climate agreement has been slow. SPIEGEL spoke with China's head climate negotiator Yu Qingtai about Western responsibility for CO2 emissions in China and frustration in the developing world.
SPIEGEL: China is now the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. Is China recognizing its responsibility for climate change?
Yu Qingtai: We take climate change very seriously, but don't forget that we are 1.3 billion people. The difference in per-capita emissions between China and the developed nations is still huge. You can't tell Chinese people that being born in China means being allowed just 20 percent or 25 percent of the CO2 emissions allowed somebody born in Europe.
The difference in per-capita emissions between China and the developed nations is still huge.
China's per capita emissions are now at about 75% of France's. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
China's CO2 emissions are (according to nationmaster), 2.66 tonnes per person per year. France's are 5.99, and the US' a whopping 19.48 The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
Bloomberg The U.S. released 20.9 tons of emissions from oil, natural gas per person in 2008, compared with 5.2 tons in China, which has about 1.3 billion people, the BP data show.
The U.S. released 20.9 tons of emissions from oil, natural gas per person in 2008, compared with 5.2 tons in China, which has about 1.3 billion people, the BP data show.
It's hard to find stronger evidence that the Chinese, no matter what they're saying, doesn't give a rats ass about CO2. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
interesting reflection on obama, who has done the same thing with respect to lefty desires for more human rights, social fairness.
both have reality's headlights bearing down on them. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Shaping the global climate change deal at the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen is a main priority of the Committee of Regions, an EU advisory body representing the bloc's regional and local governments. A global deal negotiated in Copenhagen in December by world leaders will ultimately have to be implemented by regional and local authorities, with the Committee of Regions aiming to be a "policy shaper" in this regard, its president, Luc van den Brande, told EUobserver ahead of the CoR plenary session starting on Wednesday. The climate change deal reached in Copenhagen will have to be implemented by local and regional governments During the session, representatives of local and regional governments were set to adopt several recommendations to be tabled in Copenhagen, for instance to involve them in the planning, adoption and implementation of national climate change strategies and action plans. The EU regions also wanted their own representative "in the EU delegation" at the Copenhagen conference, according to the draft resolution.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Shaping the global climate change deal at the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen is a main priority of the Committee of Regions, an EU advisory body representing the bloc's regional and local governments.
A global deal negotiated in Copenhagen in December by world leaders will ultimately have to be implemented by regional and local authorities, with the Committee of Regions aiming to be a "policy shaper" in this regard, its president, Luc van den Brande, told EUobserver ahead of the CoR plenary session starting on Wednesday.
The climate change deal reached in Copenhagen will have to be implemented by local and regional governments
During the session, representatives of local and regional governments were set to adopt several recommendations to be tabled in Copenhagen, for instance to involve them in the planning, adoption and implementation of national climate change strategies and action plans.
The EU regions also wanted their own representative "in the EU delegation" at the Copenhagen conference, according to the draft resolution.
