China to announce strategy for combating climate change

(Agencies/chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-06-01 10:02

BEIJING - China will next week release its national strategy for fighting climate change, but there is no plans for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, officials said on Thursday.

The officials, from the government's chief economic planning body and a range of other departments, said China would work with the rest of the world to tackle climate change but insisted it would not agree at the summit to any binding curbs on greenhouse gas emissions.

"Mandatory quotas for China are not fair. Therefore China cannot accept that," said one of the officials, who like the others spoke to the press at a briefing for the G8 summit on the condition they not be named.

China's climate change strategy would bring together a range of existing energy and environment goals under one umbrella, including a key goal of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent by 2010, as well as expanding forest cover and nature reserves, the officials said.

Storing carbon dioxide and methane, two of the main greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, will also be included in the action plan.

China has also previously announced a target of securing 16 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

None of the details divulged on Thursday are new measures and the plan is unlikely to include any significant new policies, said Yang Ailun, Greenpeace's global warming campaigner for China.

But she said bringing the measures together under one comprehensive plan was a step forward for China that could make coordination easier.

"This will be the first time China will coordinate things across several departments. That's very important. I think it shows China is serious about addressing the problem," Yang Ailun, a campaigner for Greenpeace's global warming, said.



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