China Seeks Help From Rich World on Climate

By SHAI OSTER
BEIJING -- China's top climate-change negotiator signaled that Beijing is unlikely to take further significant measures on emissions during global talks in Copenhagen unless wealthy countries foot the bill.
Yu Qingtai, special representative on climate-change talks, said China doesn't plan to seek international funding for the vast bulk of the reductions it announced this week -- a 40% to 45% cut in "carbon intensity," or emissions relative to economic output, below 2005 levels by 2020.
European Pressphoto Agency
Workers unload coal for a power station in Shenyang, China, on Friday.
China won't seek international monitoring of those reductions, he said, because it will pay for most of them itself. But it would accept international oversight on reductions that are funded internationally, Mr. Yu said.
"If you look at the scope of what we do, only an extremely small portion ... would get international support," Mr. Yu said in an interview Friday. "We will rely on our resources to reach the targets we set for ourselves," he added.
Mr. Yu's comments are part of an unusually intense public-relations and diplomatic campaign by China to argue its case ahead of Copenhagen. While rejecting any absolute caps on developing countries, including itself, China is demanding that developed countries commit from 0.5% to 1% of their annual gross domestic product to help poorer nations make reductions. The U.S. and Europe have said that demand isn't acceptable.
The plan China announced Thursday doesn't promise to reduce carbon emissions, but instead to slow the rate of growth in emissions. It isn't an absolute limit -- unlike the provisional target of a 17% carbon cut announced this week by the U.S., and even more aggressive targeted cuts that Europe has discussed.
Some observers had hoped China would be willing to make its targets part of an international binding agreement at the Copenhagen talks, which start next month. That could help placate critics in the U.S. and Europe who fear that, without the kinds of carbon limits developed nations are planning, China will have an unfair advantage over industries in countries with carbon caps.
But Mr. Yu offered little hope that China would make concessions at Copenhagen to make a global deal there more politically palatable in the U.S.
Arguing that rich nations have failed to live up to earlier promises and are demanding too much from China, he said: "Nobody bothered too much about meeting those commitments and we haven't heard anyone saying sorry that they failed."
Analysts remain divided over whether China's new targets represent a significant departure from business as usual. By some estimates, China has already fulfilled part of its goal through existing energy-efficiency measures. Arthur Kroeber, an economist at Dragonomics Research & Advisory in Beijing, estimates the carbon-intensity goal would still allow China's absolute emissions to rise by 90% to 108% over 2005 levels by 2020.
Jörg Wuttke, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China, says Beijing's plans for spending on green projects over the next several years show it is "moving from the rhetoric corner to the taking-action corner compared to what we saw last year."
Still, Mr. Wuttke and others are worried that if China were to make any further commitments in Copenhagen in exchange for foreign assistance, it could pose risks for foreign companies. "We're worried about enforced technology transfer," he said.
The central leadership in China -- as in the rest of the recession-hit global economy -- has to confront interest groups that include local officials and heads of powerful state-owned businesses who are opposed to slowing economic growth in the name of a cleaner environment.
Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com