Chinese leader calls for sacrifice from rich nations on climate change

Reuters
Published: November 7, 2008

BEIJING: Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said Friday that rich nations must abandon their "unsustainable lifestyle" to fight climate change and expand help to poor nations bearing the brunt of worsening droughts and rising sea levels.
Wen said at the opening of a conference that the financial crisis was no reason for rich nations to delay fighting global warming.
"As the global financial crisis spreads and worsens, and the world economy slows down apparently, the international community must not waver in its determination to tackle climate change," Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
The two-day meeting is to push China's call for rich nations to fund a huge infusion of greenhouse gas-cutting technology for developing countries. But foreign officials at the meeting raised doubts about Beijing's proposal, which could stoke contention over who pays and how much.
China is widely believed to be the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. But Wen threw the onus back on rich nations, with their much higher emissions per person and long history of polluting the air.

"Developed countries shoulder the duty and responsibility to tackle climate change and should alter their unsustainable lifestyle," he said.
Chinese officials have said wealthy nations should divert as much as 1 percent of their economic worth to pay for clean technology transfers and help the developing world overcome damage from the rising temperatures.
This would mean $284 billion a year if members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development paid up based on the size of their economies in 2007.