Isra-Mart srl : China says emissions goal already tough, no cap for now

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China's goals to slow greenhouse gas growth will be tough and costly, the nation's top climate change official said on Wednesday, presenting an absolute cap and major carbon market in the world's top emitter as distant plans.

China's key policy for fighting global warming is to reduce its "carbon intensity" -- the amount of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, emitted for each dollar of economic activity -- by 40-45 percent by 2020 compared to the 2005 level.

That domestic goal will let China's overall emissions grow with the economy, while shrinking the average amount of carbon dioxide emitted to make each car, build each home and so on.

Xie Zhenhua, a deputy head of China's National Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference the policy will be part of the country's next, 12th five-year economic plan, which officials are preparing for its launch from 2011.

Xie did not say directly whether he saw much hope of China embracing a tougher greenhouse gas goal before 2020.

But his description of the difficulties facing the intensity goal might not encourage other governments and experts that want China to do more soon to curb its emissions.

Xie dismissed assertions that the 40-45 percent carbon target was undemanding for China's fast-growing economy, citing what he said was a big price-tag for meeting an energy-saving target set in the current 11th five-year plan, which ends this year.

"CONSIDERABLE EFFORT"

"To achieve the 2020 target will need considerable effort, because the easiest problems were already generally dealt with in the 11th five-year plan, and in the 12th and 13th ones (to 2020) it will be more difficult," he said.

"So this goal is not one that will be easy to reach."

China next week for the first time hosts long-running U.N. negotiations seeking agreement on a new global regime to rein in the greenhouse gases from human activity blamed for causing global warming.

A key meeting in Copenhagen late last year broke up in acrimony without agreeing on a legally binding pact. The meeting in the north Chinese port city of Tianjin will be a stepping stone in efforts to settle such a pact, possibly by late next year.

Major two-week climate talks then follow in Cancun, Mexico, starting on Nov 29.

China is central to those negotiations.

Many Western governments and quite a few developing countries want China to take on firmer international commitments eventually to cap greenhouse gas emissions.

China has consolidated its place as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, having outstripped the United States. China's emissions from fuels such as oil and coal grew to 7.5 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2009, according to data from BP.

But China maintains it and other poorer countries must be given more space to grow their economies and, inevitably, their total emissions.

China would need a long time before taking on quantitative caps on emissions, meaning that any carbon trading market in the country would remain limited for now, said Xie.

"As climate change accelerates, the range of policy measures taken by China will become increasingly strict, and emissions goals may become increasingly quantified," he said.

"I'm sure China will open up trading in emissions permits," he added. "But this will require a certain length of time."

China has experimental voluntary trading in carbon dioxide permits in Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai, noted Xie.