CHINA: November 23, 2007


BEIJING - China wants next month's international talks on global warming to focus on future greenhouse gas cuts by rich countries and moving more "clean" technology to poor countries, an official said on Thursday.


China is emerging as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from factories, farms and vehicles that traps more heat in the atmosphere, threatening to bring dangerous, even catastrophic, climate change.

Next month in Bali, countries will start what are sure to be tough negotiations over how to fight global warming. The United Nations hopes to launch two years of talks to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose initial phase ends in 2012.

The United States, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has refused to ratify the protocol, which the Bush administration has called unfair and ineffective.

With China's greenhouse gas output set to soar, many Western politicians want Beijing to spell out its goals for limiting emissions growth -- something developing countries are not obliged to do under Kyoto.

But Song Dong, an official in the Chinese Foreign Ministry's section preparing for the Bali talks, said negotiations should focus on developed countries' responsibilities, not China.

"Now I think the most crucial task is to complete negotiations for emissions reductions by developed countries after 2012," Song told a news conference.

He said rich countries also needed to "do better in transferring (emissions reducing) technology so developing countries can afford it. That's one of our fundamental claims in the climate change sphere."

Song spoke at a briefing on China's response to a UN panel report summing up forecasts for global warming.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao repeated China's position that developing countries should not be required to adhere to specific targets on emissions.

"The critical principle is that developed countries and developing countries should have common but differentiated responsibilities," Liu told a news conference.

"We don't believe developed countries should impose compulsory objectives on developing countries."


TURBULENCE

Chinese experts say climate change could badly damage the country's coastlines, water resources and farms.

The country's pattern of abundant rains in the south and drought in the north could be reversed, bringing turbulent changes to farming, said Luo Yong, a deputy director of the national meteorological centre.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Wednesday that Beijing would hold a meeting next year for Asian countries to discuss climate change.

But China also remains committed to rapid economic growth that will lift greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come.

China's contribution to global carbon emissions by 2030 would rise to more than a quarter from a fifth now, while its per-capita contribution would still be less than half the United States, the International Energy Agency said this month.

Song said the Bali talks had to focus on adapting to inevitable climate change as well as cutting rich countries' emissions.

"Because developing countries are extremely vulnerable in the face of climate change, so for them the issue of adaptation is more prominent," he said. (Reporting by Chris Buckley, editing by Nick Macfie and David Fogarty)


REUTERS NEWS SERVICE