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Urgent green message
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-04 08:24

By now, the international community should have agreed to at least the broad aspects of a climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, for the success of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next month. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The European Union (EU), though, decided on Friday that the developing world needs $150 billion a year by 2020 to fight and adapt to global warming.

It is a welcome move, and it is in that context that Premier Wen Jiabao talked with European Council President Jose Manuel Barroso over the phone yesterday. Wen reiterated that financial support and technology transfer from the developed to the developing world was the key to the success of the Copenhagen talks. The key to success at the meeting is to uphold the Kyoto Protocol and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the principle of common but differentiated obligations, Wen is reported to have told Barroso.

Urgent green message

A Foreign Ministry statement quoted Barroso as having said: "The EU hopes to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in order to ensure the success of the Copenhagen meeting."

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All this is fine. But EU member countries, despite agreeing that the developing world needs $150 billion a year and that as much as half of that amount has to come from public money, could not decide on how much each of them would have to pay. The reason: Europe's own wealth gap.

To be honest, Poland is not as rich as say Germany, Britain or France, and historically, it has not emitted as much greenhouse gases (GHGs) as the other three. So it cannot be blamed for having led nine Central and East European countries against paying in proportion to their emissions, which in their case are high because of their dependence on coal-fired power stations. And Warsaw was justified in demanding that the EU apportion the burden instead on the basis of national income.

That is exactly the case with countries such as China and India. They emit high levels of GHGs because they are dependent on coal-powered energy and have huge populations to feed and serve. And of course, there is the, by now old, argument of historical responsibility. It's precisely because of these factors that China should and cannot be forced into imposing binding emission cuts.

Now that the EU has understood that developing nations do need financial support to fight climate change, we hope the US, too, comes to accept the fact, because without Washington's ratification no climate deal can be a success. We hope the rich world also realizes - and before the Copenhagen conference - that technology transfer is as important as financial support for the developing nations to switch their production to cleaner means.

The success or failure of the Copenhagen talks now rests squarely on the rich countries' shoulders. And the sooner they agree among themselves on how to share the financial burden (which the EU is still to do), the better for the environment, for if they cannot agree themselves how can they expect the developing world to agree with them?

(China Daily 11/04/2009 page8)