Improved environment for talks?

(China Daily) Updated: 2012-11-29 11:21

Su Wei,

chief climate negotiator and director-general of the Department of Climate Change of the National Development and Reform Commission

A1 The Doha meeting is critical in implementing the consensus reached at previous meetings. We hope to make progress on key issues such as the extension of the Kyoto Protocol and the funding issue. Usually parties' stands are not very clear at the initial stage of the negotiations, but eventually all parties could reach an acceptable result.

Doha is an important stage, but surely not the end of international climate change negotiations. It's unlikely that all problems can be solved in Doha. The significance of the Doha talks is in making appropriate arrangements on remaining issues before starting a new round of talks.

A2 Some developed countries want to close the twin-track negotiations set by the Bali Road Map - the Kyoto Protocol track and the Long-term Cooperative Action track - without solving the unsettled issues and transferring to a new round of talks based on new principles, which would actually violate the consensus reached at last year's Durban conference in South Africa.

A3 It seems that the issue of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol was already solved in Durban, but what's more important is to implement the decisions made there.

The emission reductions set by developed countries are far from sufficient, and we need a regime to ensure developed countries take more action in the years to come. The issues could be solved if parties have the political will to do so.

Regarding the length of the second commitment period of the protocol, we think it should be eight years because it could then be linked with the existing 2020 targets.

Some small, developing island states think the period should be five years to push developed countries to take speedier action. Anyway, we hope technical issues won't affect the framework setting of the second commitment period of the protocol.

A4 China is under significant pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But it's also a fact that as a major manufacturing center, a large portion of China's emissions are not meant to satisfy China's own consumption, yet China is the one to be blamed.

It's arguable that developed countries bear the major obligation and they should foot the bill for their unrestricted emissions in the 200 years of industrialization, which caused the surge in carbon intensity, a major cause leading to global warming.

Surely China needs to make more effort to transit to a low-carbon path, and recently the "beautiful China" concept and ecological progress have been highlighted. That's inspiring.