Rich nations urged to lead emission cuts

Developed countries must not pass the buck when it comes to shouldering their fair share of the burden of cutting carbon emissions, China's foreign ministry said ahead of a crucial climate change summit in Lima, Peru.

While analysts said that the recent China-US climate deal will do much to push the agenda at the UN Climate Change Conference, which kicked off Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged the Lima meeting to specify what should be included in "intended nationally determined contributions," meaning that the details of the amount of carbon emissions each country should cut should be clearly specified.

Hua added that developed nations should continue to take the lead in cutting emissions by large margins.

Representatives of 195 governments are meeting to draw the outline of an unprecedented accord to be sealed in Paris in December 2015 and which will take effect by 2020.

Xie Zhenhua, the deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), together with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, are leading the Chinese delegation.

UN nations have vowed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Scientists say the Earth is currently on course for roughly twice this amount by the end of the century - a recipe for worse droughts, floods, storms and rising seas.

"2014 is threatening to be the hottest year in history and emissions continue to rise. We need to act urgently," Christiana Figueres, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told delegates.

Cooperation between China and the US, the top two greenhouse gas emitters, and a decision by the EU to cut its emissions have given a new sense of momentum to UN talks that have failed to produce agreement on a global deal in two decades.

China has agreed to set a cap on its carbon emissions by around 2030 and the US agreed to cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, following a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama in November in Beijing.

The EU also aims to cut emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. That means that nations accounting for more than half of world emissions have set goals.

"The joint statement by Xi and Obama has sent a very positive message to the Lima meeting, as it signals cooperation between the world's largest developed country and the world's largest developing country to curb climate change," said Pan Jiahua, a research fellow from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who also sits on China National Expert Panel of Climate Change.

Both countries have also agreed to increase funding to tackle climate change. Obama announced at the G20 summit in November that the US will contribute $3 billion to a new international fund to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change. China also vowed in September that China intends to double its financial support to help build a climate change fund for the South-South Cooperation.

"With sufficient financing, the climate change mission is more likely to keep developing countries on board," said Pan. He added he felt positive that the Lima conference will generate a framework deal given the current political momentum, but said the countries still have a long way to go to agree on detailed terms.

"Behind the UN talks, what these countries are really fighting for are their national interests," Pan said. "Many things remain uncertain. For example, the $3 billion promised by Obama could be cut by Capitol Hill."

According to previous decisions, a draft text of the 2015 agreement should be completed by May 2015, but there are still big divergences on the information to be included.

While developed countries said emission reductions should be focused on contributions from all nations, developing countries insist that adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building support from developed countries should also be included, a call echoed by Hua.

"People are not going to reveal what cards they are holding until the last minute," Su Wei, director of the department of climate change with the NDRC who is also a top Chinese negotiator at the Lima conference, told the 21 Century Business Herald. "It will be a tough round of negotiations. If we fail to resolve the key issues at this conference, things will only become more difficult for the next meeting," Su said.