5 November 2007Forbes
The European Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change has sent an official delegation to China to discuss global warming and the upcoming international talks in Bali on the possible extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
The Committee begins its visit today, and will meet with Ma Kai, the director of China's state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, which is also responsible for emission reductions and climate change policy.
The Kyoto Protocol -- which commits signatories in the industrialized world to 5-pct cuts in 1990 greenhouse gas emissions -- expires in 2012, and international representatives will gather in Bali in December to discuss what arrangement will replace it.
Committee rapporteur Karl-Heinz (nyse: HNZ - news - people ) Florenz said that any post-Kyoto regime would 'only be possible if countries like China or India are part of such an agreement.'
In a recent resolution, the Committee called for a post-Kyoto framework that will include binding emission targets for all industrialized countries, a global 'cap and trade' system and new instruments for clean technology transfers.
China is reluctant to accept mandatory emission cuts, saying that as a developing country, it cannot yet afford to make such an undertaking.
It has also repeatedly argued that a significant proportion of its greenhouse gases arises from its growing role as the supplier of manufactured goods to the international economy.
However, Europe is thought to be pressing for at least a symbolic commitment to cuts on the part of the Chinese government in order to help persuade the US to join any post-Kyoto regime.
Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister for the environment, said at the Davos forum in Dalian earlier this year that although developed countries should take the lead, 'developing countries should bear some burden, but not the same burden.'
