By Martin Banks - 7th November 2007
China is making efforts to reduce emissions, save energy and use renewable fuels, says climate change MEP.
However, Beijing is likely to reject any deal that calls for binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol.
That is the verdict of Italian Socialist MEP Guido Sacconi, who has led a parliamentary delegation to China this week for high-level talks with government and environmental officials.
"In the private meetings we have had, particularly with Chinese politicians, there were of course some differences of opinion," Sacconi, who heads parliament's temporary committee on climate change, told a news conference in Beijing.
"The main difference is, unlike parliament or the EU, the Chinese believe that it will not be possible, in the agreement which follows the Kyoto Protocol, for China to accept any binding obligations — this was one difference between us."
Despite this, Sacconi said the three-day discussions had been “fruitful” and that China was making efforts to reduce emissions, save energy and use renewable fuels.
Chinese politicians were committed to tackling global warming and to international cooperation in the fields of environmental technology and finance, he said.
The temporary committee is pushing for an international agreement by 2009 that includes emission targets for industrialized countries and transfers of clean technology.
It wants industrial countries to reduce emissions by at least 30 percent by 2020, and by 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050 compared to levels in 1990.
The purpose of the temporary committee is to help get developing countries like India and China on board an international climate change treaty.
The ten-person delegation, which concludes its visit on Wednesday, is in China at an important time.
Next month environment ministers from 80 countries will meet in Bali, Indonesia, to discuss a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, under which nations agreed to cut their carbon dioxide to below 1990 levels by 2012.
The US insists that China, said to be the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, needs to be included in the pact.
China, worried that binding emissions limits could hinder growth, would be willing to negotiate and make commitments at the Bali talks, Sacconi said but they weren't certain what those commitments would be.
Sacconi said this week's discussions had been fruitful and that China was making efforts to reduce emissions, save energy and use renewable fuels.
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