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COPENHAGEN: The political accord that the nations acknowledge at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP15, “is impressive” with a number of “significant elements”, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of UN’s agency in charge of coordinating global effort to tackle climate change, UN Framework on Climate Change, said at COP15′s last press conference held Saturday afternoon.

He explained that the discussion of the draft accord was led by Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and joined by US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with ministers from some 20 other countries, including China, Brazil and India.

It set the goal for limiting the temperature rise by 2 degrees Celsius, obtained commitment of greenhouse emission cuts by developed countries, engagement of developing countries to mitigate global warming and financial pledges from developed countries to help the most vulnerable countries, de Boer said.

He also admitted the shortfalls of the accord as it is not legally-binding.

It failed to pin down the emission cut targets by industrialized countries as well as developing countries, he said.

The financial pledge has not specified how the rich countries are going to divide the share and where actually the money will come from.

“What is put in place is a letter of intent, a willingness to move forward,” he said, adding that it has also left a lot of work for the nations to do next year in Mexico, where COP16 will be held.

He expressed his frustration that two years’ negotiations with nine meetings and several summits have resulted in a document that should make people all “conscious of huge challenges that lie ahead of us.”

While negotiations move forward, “the science does not move,” he said, meaning that the window of opportunity to be able to slow down the global

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COPENHAGEN: No matter what the outcome of the UN climate change conference is, China will remain committed to achieving and even exceeding the emission reduction targets it has said for itself, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Friday.

“We will honour our word with real action,” Wen told 119 heads of state and government attending the UN climate change conference, or COP15.

Before the conference began, China announced that it would reduce its carbon intensity emission per unit of GDP — by 40 and 45 percent by 2020, taking 2005 as the base year.

Speaking at an informal high-level meting, hosted by Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, on the last day of the conference, Wen elaborated China’s achievements in developing clean energy and cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Stressing that this is a voluntary move taken by China, Wen said: “We have not attached any condition to the target, nor have we linked it to the target of any other country.”

In responding to developed countries’insistance on transparency, Wen said: “We will further enhance the domestic statistical, monitoring and evaluation methods, improve the way for releasing emission reduction information, increase transparency and actively engage in international exchange, dialogue and cooperation.”

Wen then met US President Barack Obama for nearly an hour in what a White House official described as a “step forward”.

“They had a constructive discussion that touched upon … all the key issues,” the official said. “They’ve now directed their negotiators to work on a bilateral basis as well as with other countries to see if an agreement can be reached.”

But Obama refused to commit to new GHG emission cuts, a move that many said could have salvaged the floundering climate talks.

Since not much headway has been made toward a deal, negotiations could continue beyond Friday, the official last day of the conference.

Till late on Friday night (Beijing time), Rasmussen was locked in talks with some heads of state and government and ministers to see whether a political declaration could be made. He was also trying to strike a deal on “Long-term Cooperation Action” and possible amendments to Kyoto Protocol.

Before the two leaders’ meeting, leaders of major developed and developing economies such as US President Obama, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also addressed the informal high-level gathering.

Their speeches, though, showed their divergent views on how the world should work together to slow down global warming.

Singh, who supported China’s stance, said: “The vast majority of countries do not support any renegotiation or dilution of the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), especially the principle of equity and equitable burden sharing.”

Wen urged the international community to fight climate change on the basis of four principles. The international community should strengthen confidence, build consensus, make vigorous efforts and enhance cooperation, he said.

The countries should honor and follow the documents they are have agreed to since 1992, that is, the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Bali Roadmap (2007), he said. They “should lock up rather than deny the consensus and progress already made at the negotiations”.

Upholding the fairness of rules is the second principle that Wen proposed. The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities represents the core … of international cooperation on climate change”.

“It must never be compromised,” he said.

Industrialization began in the developing countries only a few decades ago and many of their people still live in abject poverty, he said. China alone has 150 million people living in poverty by UN standards.

“It is unjustified to ask them to commit to binding emission cut targets beyond their due obligations and capabilities in disregard to historical responsibilities, per capita emissions and different levels of development,” he said.

Third, we should pay attention to the practicality of the targets, he said.

“The Kyoto Protocol has set out clear emission reduction targets for developed countries for the first commitment period, until 2012. But a review of implementation shows that the emissions from many developed countries have increased instead of decreasing,” Wen said.

Fourth, the international community has to ensure the effectiveness of institutions and mechanisms. “Concrete actions and institutional guarantee are essential to our efforts to tackle climate change,” Wen said.

“I think Wen spoke with passion to seek a constructive and meaningful climate deal,” said Wu Changhua, Greater China Director of the Climate Group.

He made it clear that China was committed to pursuing a low-carbon economy despite the tremendous difficulties that it would face, Wu said.

Though China has a clear vision, some funds and technologies and is committed to the cause, aligning the vision, policy, money, technologies is still an uphill task for it, she said.

That Wen reiterated China’s position at the conference shows that the principles of UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan should not be compromised, Wu said.

This position is shared by most developing countries and many NGOs in China and abroad, she said.

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Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday spoke of China’s desire to see progress and consensus reached up to now written into the outcome paper from the two-week UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, despite the gloomy expectations hanging over the Danish capital.

Wen said the paper can still provide momentum for future international cooperation and negotiation and he called on negotiators and global leaders to take swift action to lock in achievements made during two years of tough talks aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

With snow melting in bright sunshine yesterday and with the UN conference entering its crucial final stage, Wen told Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that world leaders should make every effort to find common ground.

Wen will likely make his case during his five-minute speech at the UN climate change leaders plenary today. He is also scheduled to make a one-minute statement during the second phase of the plenary.

His stance was praised by Rasmussen, who said: “I hope all the countries will follow China’s example by showing active and responsible attitudes to achieve a positive outcome.”

Sources close to the Chinese delegation said China would like to see all the policy consensus reached so far included in an outcome document – such as carbon emissions reduction targets proposed by developed countries.

China offered to cut carbon intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 levels.

US President Barack Obama has offered to cut greenhouse gases by 4 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 – or 17 percent against 2005 levels.

The European Union has said it will cut emissions by at least 20 percent against 1990 levels.

“All these targets should be written into the paper for further negotiations,” said the sources in Copenhagen.

During his flight to Copenhagen, Wen told China Daily that Beijing’s target was based on reality and he said China will not lessen its efforts, no matter what outcomes are reached today in Copenhagen.

While huge differences persist among parties at the climate talks, the Chinese government also suggested that disagreements should be included in the outcome document in an effort to push forward future negotiations and discussions, sources said.

The difficult two weeks of negotiations became deadlocked because “some parties intend to kill the Kyoto Protocol and endanger international cooperation”, said Chinese chief climate change negotiator Su Wei.

Wen has been working hard to find a way forward, including his meeting with his Danish counterpart and the UN secretary-general yesterday, but he admitted several focused problems – mainly between developed countries and developing nations – blocked progress.

“China will continue to support the efforts made by the host, and will work closely with all parties in pushing for a positive outcome from the summit,” Wen told Rasmussen.

He also said China will continuously support the efforts of the UN secretary-general in achieving a positive outcome.

Ban said Premier Wen arrived at a critical time, with the UN climate meeting at a final and crucial stage.

“During the past two years, worldwide negotiators have made efforts in forming a final document on dealing with climate change, a deal that is currently under busy preparation,” Ban said. “I hope you can make good use of your strong leadership in achieving that.”

Meetings between Wen and leaders from South Africa, the United Kingdom and Germany are also being arranged.

Wen has also been trying to build a consensus among other parties from small island countries, African nations and other developing countries.

“All these countries are most vulnerable to climate change and the international community should deliver a helping hand in the form of capital and technology transfer in an urgent manner,” Wen said during a group meeting with five such countries.

On a different occasion, Wen said China will help these countries in the framework of South-South cooperation.

“We used to focus on agricultural and medical areas and the next is tackling climate change.”

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China is seeking to enhance its fence against separatists both home and abroad as President Hu Jintao made a visit to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan this weekend.
In his meeting with Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov yesterday, Hu proposed to improve direct contact between each nation’s enforcement agencies to combat terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.

“The ‘three evil forces’ have been a hidden peril to the security and stability in the region,” Hu said.

The president has also proposed to set up a China-Turkmenistan Cooperation Commission to guide bilateral cooperative affairs.

Wu Hongbing, Chinese ambassador to Turkmenistan, told China Daily that a committee under the framework of the commission would take charge of efforts to combat separatists and transnational crime.

During his Saturday meeting with Hu, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that China’s proper handling of the Urumqi riots on July 5 and its joint efforts with Central Asian countries are conducive to the stability in the Xinjiang region and a boon to his country.

Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, who is visiting Turkmenistan, said “every meeting with China has yielded efforts in line with maintaining Uzbekistan’s interests and is conducive to regional stability”.

The cooperation between China and Central Asian nations is important because it is difficult for a single nation to weed out terrorists and separatists, said Yang Shu, director of the Center of Central Asia Studies at Lanzhou University.

Zan Tao, an expert of Central Asian studies at Peking University, said “the so-called ‘Eastern Turkestan’ forces pose a threat to not only China but also Central Asia.”

The deadliest riot in Urumqi in decades sheds light on the need for the countries to fight terrorists together, Zan said.

China has said separatists, who had connection with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist group listed by the United Nations, plotted the riot.

Hu arrived in Kazakhstan on Saturday to attend the inauguration ceremony of the China-Kazakhstan natural gas pipeline, part of the China-Central Asia natural gas line. He left for Turkmenistan yesterday, where Hu and leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will attend a ceremony marking the completion of one of two pipelines today.

BEIJING: China’s imports and exports rose 9.8 percent in November year on year, ending a 12-month decline, to stand at $208.2 billion, the General Administration of Customs announced Friday.

The trade surplus was $177.96 billion in the January-November period, down 30.6 percent from a year earlier.

Exports stood at $113.65 billion in November, down 1.2 percent from a year earlier, but were up 2.6 percent from October for the fifth consecutive monthly increase.

Imports rose 26.7 percent in November to $94.6 billion.

From January to November, the country’s imports and exports totalled $1.96 trillion, down 17.5 percent compared with the corresponding period last year.

Imports for the first 11 months were $893.02 billion, down 15.8 percent year on year; exports dropped 18.8 percent to $1.07 trillion.

The EU remained China’s biggest trading partner, though bilateral trade declined 17 percent to $326.27 billion in value in the first 11 months; the United States was second with trade at $266.54 billion, down 13.4 percent; Japan followed with trade down 17.4 percent to $203.33 billion.

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said here Monday that a legally binding treaty on climate change will be reached in 2010.

“The legally binding treaty will be reached as soon as possible in 2010,” Ban told reporters here after he met with visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner at the UN Headquarters in New York.

The secretary-general made the statement hours after the opening of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

The Copenhagen conference, officially known as the 15th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will conclude on December 18.
Around 100 leaders from the UN member countries and about 12, 000 delegates and specialists from more than 170 countries will attend the conference.

“Our target, our goal, is to have a legally binding treaty … as soon as possible in 2010,” Ban said. “But before that, we must have a strong political agreement in Copenhagen.”

“The more ambitious, the stronger agreement we have in Copenhagen, the easier, the quicker the process we will have to a legally binding treaty in 2010, as early as possible,” he said. ” This is our commitment.”

“The momentum has been created. This is a decisive moment. We must seal the deal,” he said. “I am encouraged that more than 105 heads of state and government are committed to participate in the leaders’ meeting on the 18th of the month.”

The secretary-general will head for Copenhagen next week to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference which opened Monday in the Danish capital, his spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here, adding that Ban will attend the high-level segment of the conference, which begins on December 15.

The secretary-general expected “a robust agreement at Copenhagen that will be effective immediately and include specific commitments on mitigation, adaptation finance and technology,” Nesirky said.

Ban said “Copenhagen can and must be the turning point in the world’s efforts to prevent runaway climate change and usher in a new era of green growth for all,” the spokesman said.

Kouchner was at the UN Headquarters to lobby for the financial-transaction tax, which demands a 0.005 percent levy on all trade of currency across borders.

The tax proceeds would be used to advance sustainable development concerning food security, education, health and climate change. Some 58 countries and organizations have voiced support for the tax, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

“It will be done,” Kouchner told a press conference after his meeting with Ban, adding his initiative is conducive to the global efforts to reach the target set up in the UN Millennium Goals.

“We also discussed how to generate and mobilize the necessary financial support,” Ban said. “One of the ideas was innovative financing. The French government has been leading and playing a champion role in generating innovative finance for development and health, and now on climate change, I hope this will be discussed in Copenhagen, as a way to generate financial support in addition to public fundings to be provided by the governments.”

For his part, Kouchner, standing beside the secretary-general, told reporters that “We are now a bit more optimist getting a political statement at the end of the Copenhagen conference and after, political statement is very important, of course, but the implementation of that political statement is up to the secretary- general and UN system.”

“That’s why so interesting, considering, the fate of developing countries,” he said. “They are hoping after the Copenhagen conference to get some help — particular help for their development.”
Of course, it was the Millennium Goals … his is close to climate change,” he said. “This additional burdens are of course facing us. So, yes, we are taking the innovative sources of financing — this initiative coming from France and with 59 countries working on this international contribution.”

During the meeting, Ban and Kouchner also touched upon the situation in Afghanistan, Sudan and Guinea.

On Afghanistan, Ban said, “We are going to have an international conference in London on January 28. I am sure that that will provide an opportunity to help the Afghan government to establish, first of all, a strong good government structure, and also institution building.”

“That will be a very good opportunity for strengthening the compact between the international community and Afghanistan,” he said.

On Sudan, the secretary-general said, “We are going through a very crucial, important period, next year, starting with elections; also a referendum to be held in 2011. We will have to make progress in deployment of peacekeeping operations and implementations of the comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan.”

The blame game that some people in rich countries have been playing against developing countries does not bode well for the UN Climate Change Conference that begins in Copenhagen on Monday.

If the world is to have a truly global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate global warming, every country has to play a definitive role. Fishing in troubled waters at a time when a defining deal could be reached is going to lead us nowhere.

A recent Reuters report quoted some unidentified Western countries’ diplomats as having said that China and other big developing nations had rejected so-called “core targets”, necessary to reach a climate deal. By suggesting that the developing countries’ opposition has made it difficult to reach a new climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol these people are trying to ensure that their countries continue to shirk their responsibilities and shift the blame on others.

Targets like halving global GHG emissions by 2050, making 2020 the peak year for emissions and limiting the rise in temperature to a maximum of 2 C above pre-industrial levels, as these European diplomats mentioned, are indeed important. But they are not deemed necessary for a new deal in Copenhagen because they will impose some impractical and unfair demands on developing countries.

Instead, major governments aim to agree on four substantive factors that must be decided if the world is to have a new and workable framework on cutting GHG emissions. These factors are: Developed countries must accept binding GHG-reduction targets for 2020, developing nations must set out the measures they will take to curb emission growth, the rich world must provide finance and transfer technology to help poor countries cut their emissions and adapt to the changing climate, and all states have to outline the governance structure that would provide the means to monitor the above three activities.

To be frank, the developing nations have no cause for concern. Just last week, China announced that it would voluntarily cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, taking 2005 as the base year. India, too, is taking voluntary steps to check its GHG emissions.

On the other hand, the rich world, generally speaking, has not fulfilled its tasks as required by the Kyoto Protocol. Worse, given the global recession it seems more and more doubtful that the developed countries will keep their promise of providing finance and transferring technology to poor nations to help them combat climate change.

Expectations from Copenhagen have already been lowered. Still, we should not lose hope for a new climate deal. But for that to happen every country, rich or poor, big or small, should face up to the climate change challenge and do its utmost to fight it.

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