Defending the global environment

"It's an indisputable fact that China is a developing country, which can be easily proved by every aspect of Chinese people's life. For example, the per-capita meat consumption in China's urban area is roughly 60 kg annually, far less than the 120 kg in developed countries, which mirrors its weak agricultural industry and low production efficiency," said Gao Feng, Special Representative for Climate Change Negotiations, stating his opinion that developed countries always feature strong agriculture.

"Now, the gap between developed countries and developing countries is still very big, and economic growth, social development and poverty elimination are still the main tasks of the developing countries. After 2020, the developing countries will still lag far behind the developed countries in terms of national conditions, development stages and actual ability," said Su Wei, head of the Climate Change Department of the NDRC, explaining why the common but differentiated responsibilities principle is necessary.

As a matter of fact, when many developed countries reached their carbon dioxide emission peaks, China was far from the biggest emitter, said Gao, indicating that the current problems concerning climate change are mainly a result of the unrestrained emissions of developed countries in the past.

According to the UNFCCC, developed countries should fulfill the obligations of providing sufficient funds for developing countries to cope with climate change. However, the funding negotiations, including those for technology transfer, have made little progress over the past two decades.

At the 2009 Copenhagen conference, developed countries promised to provide US$100 billion a year by 2020 to the developing world. By now, the Green Climate Fund under the UNFCCC has only raised a little more $9 billion.

Substantial contributions

Following the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Beijing in November, China and the United States issued a joint statement on climate change to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the statement, the United States has set a target of reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025, while China has pledged to achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commended the statement, calling it "an important contribution" to a possible agreement at a UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

According to the agreement reached at the Warsaw climate conference in November 2013, all countries should release their targets in the first quarter of 2015. "China and the United States, the two major greenhouse gas emitting countries, have already released their targets ahead of the schedule, which clearly illustrates China's attitude toward promoting a multi-lateral process," said Xie.

Since the two countries are at different development stages, their goals are differentiated--China's goal is about relative emission reduction, while the United States has to cut its absolute volume. Xie suggested that China should be likely to maintain the level for years after reaching its carbon dioxide emission peak, following the experience of many developed countries.

At the UN Climate Summit held in September, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, special envoy of President Xi Jinping, proposed China's post-2020 action goal to deal with climate change--reducing carbon intensity, increasing the share of non-fossil fuels, raising the forest stock, and reaching the peak of its total carbon dioxide emission as early as possible. Beyond that, Zhang announced that China would double its investment in the South-South Cooperation Fund.

Since 2011, China has invested a total of 270 million yuan (US$43.99 million) to help developing countries enhance their capacity to address climate change and trained nearly 2,000 climate change officials and professionals from developing countries, according to statistics from the NDRC.

Apart from emission reduction, the development of green energy is also highly significant. By the end of 2013, non-fossil energy generation capacity had accounted for 30.9 percent of the total electricity generation capacity, 4 percent higher than the previous year.

At the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in November 2013, the decisive role of the market was stressed in allocating resources, and a trading system for carbon emissions was put on the agenda. Now, seven provinces and cities are carrying out carbon trading pilot programs, and a total of 13.75 million tons of carbon dioxide worth more than 500 million yuan (US$81.47 million) have been traded by the end of October, 2014.

Gao Yun, deputy head of the Department of Science & Technology and Climate Change, China Meteorological Administration, said that China is committed to the sustainable development, and other countries should also show their sincerity.

"Developed countries should do what the Bali Roadmap requires and take real actions to cope with climate change," said Gao.