Isra-Mart srl : China insists rich world's carbon targets must be on Cancun agenda

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The standoff at the centre of the UN's long-running climate change negotiations reared its head again at the latest round of talks in Tianjin today, when one of China's top negotiators reiterated his call for industrialised nations to adopt more ambitious emission reduction targets.

Officials had hoped that the latest week-long round of talks in the northern Chinese port city would focus on those areas where agreement is likely to be achieved at the upcoming Cancun summit, such as forestry protection and climate financing.

However, Su Wei, head of the climate change office at China's National Development and Reform Commission, today told reporters that China would use the Cancun summit to press industrialised nations to increase their emissions targets.

"The emissions targets of developed countries should be dramatically raised, " he said, reiterating UN warnings that the cuts currently proposed by the US, the EU and other industrialised countries are not ambitious enough to avoid temperature rises of more than two degrees.

He added that while it was encouraging that industrialised nations had agreed to various emissions targets as part of last year's Cancun Accord, the targets were "still far removed from the expectations of developing countries and from what is required according to science".

Su also warned that the contentious issue of emissions targets would form a central part of the agenda at the Cancun summit, despite a widespread acceptance that the issue will not be resolved this year and that the focus should shift to areas where the key players are closer to agreement.

"To achieve a balanced outcome at the Cancun conference, the emissions reduction targets of developed countries must be discussed," he said. "We can't discuss just other elements, but not discuss these emissions reductions."

The standoff over emission reduction targets is at the heart of the stalled negotiations.

Developing countries, led by China, maintain that the 17 per cent emission cuts that the US has promised to deliver by 2020 and the more ambitious 20 per cent cuts pledged by the EU are insufficient.

They argue that industrialised nations should agree to cuts of about 40 per cent by 2020, to allow poorer countries to adopt less demanding targets.

But the US has consistently maintained that such ambitious targets are unfeasible and has indicated that it would only consider adopting more demanding goals if emerging economies such as China and India also agree to binding emission reduction targets – something both countries have refused to do.

Meanwhile, delegates at the Tianjin talks signalled that the atmosphere surrounding the negotiations has improved markedly since the most recent round of talks in Bonn, Germany, and as such optimism remains that some progress can be made on issues relating to the long-term management of climate funding and clean technology transfer.