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Strategy drafted on climate change
By Zhu Baoxia (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-05-24 09:25
The Chinese Government is strengthening efforts to address the consequences
brought by global climate change.
The National Climate Change Co-ordination Committee, which is composed of 15
government departments and institutions, is drafting a national strategy dealing
with impacts of climate change and an administrative regulation on a clean
development mechanism (CDM), according to Office of National Climate Change
Co-ordination Committee division chief Sun Cuihua.
The strategy is expected to be enforced starting either this or next year
after final approval by the State Council, while the CDM regulation may come out
next month, Sun said.
The strategy, a long-term plan aimed towards 2020, will serve as a guide for
actions in different walks of life to address all the impacts that climate
change may bring about.
It will also serve as a reference for local governments when drafting their
socio-economic development plans for the next five years (2006-10), Sun said.
The strategy will involve analyzing the current situation, the trend of
change and adaptation measures to climate change in China and specify measures
to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.
The CDM regulation will, for the first time in China, also set qualification
conditions for enterprises and organizations implementing CDM projects,
therefore providing a legal foundation for the expansion of CDM practices in
China, Sun said.
Scientific research undertaken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) have found that the average global temperature has risen by 0.6 C
since the year 1860.
Global warming has resulted in the melting of glaciers and brought about more
extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, sandstorms and typhoons which
severely affect everyday life.
According to IPCC data, the glacial area of Kenya's Mount Kilimanjaro shrank
by 80 per cent between 1912 and 2000.
The snow-line of the glaciers in Northwest China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region
has also receded by 140 metres since 1962.
Another research by the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction in Canada
indicated that more than 2,500 natural disasters occurred worldwide during the
1990s, with the largest adverse impacts of severe weather being recorded in
China, Bangladesh and other developing countries.
The Chinese Government has attached great importance to dealing with climate
change.
The National Climate Change Co-ordination Committee, which was formally
established in 1998, has promulgated a series of policies to gradually reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
Measures include technology upgrades to raise energy efficiency and the
promotion of renewable energy to replace conventional fuels, as well as planting
of trees and controlling the impact of the human population on the environment.
International co-operation has been carried out with international agencies
such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as bilateral
collaborations with a number of countries including Canada, the UK, Denmark and
the Netherlands.
One successful example is the China-Canada Co-operation on Climate Change
(C5). The two-and-half-year project has helped raise public awareness in China
over climate change and improved the nation's research on impact and adaptation
to climate change.
The Canadian side is also very satisfied with the C5 project which is
"beneficial to both countries," according to Don Maclver, the visiting director
of the Adaptation and Impacts Research Group under the Canadian Ministry of
Environment.
Canada highly values China's advanced scientific research on impacts and
adaptations to climate change in the agricultural sector, issues that are
extremely important to two of the world's major agricultural producers, he
stressed.
The C5 project enables more information exchanges and at the conclusion of
the C5 project, the two sides have agreed to further expand partnerships in
agriculture and some other fields like water quality, fighting drought and the
production of clean and renewable energy, he said.
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