Climate Change

In the course of the negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen summit in December 2009 to forge a successor to the Kyoto protocol. China took a hard line, calling on industrialised countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels and committing at least 0.5-1.0 per cent of their annual economic worth to help poorer countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and cope with global warming. In what some called "the most complex diplomatic negotiations in the history of the world", China and the US tried to bridge their differences in climate talks, with China refusing to accept absolute limits on her emissions, preferring voluntary domestic targets instead. After Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso announced a 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels (equivalent to 8% cut from the 1990 levels), a Chinese FM spokesman said the Japanese target "falls far short from the present task of tackling climate change as well as the aspirations of the international community". China also criticised the US climate change bill as setting the bar too low and offering the world a poor example.