Biggest emitters fail to show the way forward

Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Edward Luce in Washington
Published: June 10 2009 17:05

China and the US failed to achieve a breakthrough at their latest round of climate talks on Wednesday, raising the stakes in the global effort to fight global climate change.
The two countries responsible for almost half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions ended three days of negotiations in Beijing.

While there are still months to go until the December meeting in Copenhagen, where 181 countries, led by the United Nations, plan to work out a new climate pact, the two biggest emitters’ glacial pace towards compromise is likely to discourage others from making concessions during a pre-Copenhagen round of negotiations under way in Bonn, which is set to wrap up on Friday.
Todd Stern, President Barack Obama’s special envoy on climate change, tried to sound optimistic when the US delegation ended its China visit but could hardly conceal that little had been achieved. Mr Stern, who before leaving for China had said, “Let’s get this damn thing started [between the US and China]”, did his best to paper over the lack of progress. “In our meetings, we deepened our dialogue with our Chinese counterparts through a candid discussion of the challenges we must overcome and the opportunities we must seize if we and the world are to reach an international climate agreement,” the US delegation said in a leaving statement.
“These meetings were a step in the right direction on the road to Copenhagen and to charting a global path to a clean energy future,” the Americans added.
Chinese officials maintained that the two countries should have a “common but differentiated approach” – code for Beijing’s reluctance to adopt a formal domestic mandate to reduce its carbon emissions. The US Congress is considering a bill that would reduce US emissions to 83 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020. China wants the US to cut its emissions to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 – a different order of magnitude. It also wants the US to pledge up to 1 per cent of its gross domestic product to pay for clean technology in China and elsewhere.
“It is going to be really tough to get the Chinese to make significant concessions by Copenhagen,” said Bruce Braine, a board member of the International Emissions Trading Association. “There seems to be a lack of realism in ... the developing world about what the US can achieve at home.”
US lawmakers expressed optimism last month when they toured the Chinese capital for discussions on climate change. But the two countries’ positions on what they could and should contribute show an almost ideological divide which observers say risks antagonising the rest of the world along the lines of developing and developed nations.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009