China Looks for Big Cuts in Emissions

China, in a new document outlining its stance ahead of December climate talks in Copenhagen, says it wants developed nations to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 40% by 2020 from 1990 levels. But that is a far more aggressive cut than the level proposed in the U.S.'s Waxman-Markey bill. Europe, in turn, has pledged to cut emissions by at least 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels, and by 30% if other advanced economies follow suit.
The divergent views come as negotiations begin in earnest for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012. China's 40% target represents the high end of cuts in emissions mentioned in the 2007 Bali road map, which stopped short of endorsing a specific target.

China is also asking rich countries to donate at least 0.5% to 1% of annual gross domestic product to help poorer countries cope with climate change and greenhouse-gas emissions, it said in the document, which was posted on the Web site of the National Development and Reform Commission, its economic policy-making body.
China has resisted any mandatory quotas on carbon emissions. The country is widely considered to have surpassed the U.S. as the world's top polluter.
But the Obama administration's push to adopt limits on carbon emissions is also isolating China, which has argued that the U.S. should take steps before poorer nations do.
India has also refused to accept any carbon caps, arguing like China that they would limit economic growth and unfairly penalize late-developing nations. Europe and the U.S. generated the bulk of the carbon gas already in the atmosphere, they argue, and should bear a greater burden of the cost to fix it.—Jing Yang and Shai Oster contributed to this article.