Nations split over whether deal should be legally binding
Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to attend a key UN climate conference in Paris on Monday as world leaders gather to reach a deal to tackle global warming amid political and economic obstacles.
Nearly 150 heads of state and government are gathering in Paris for the conference, known as COP21. The meeting, from Monday to December 11, aims to clinch a long-term deal to cut carbon emissions after two decades of talks that failed to effectively curb global warming.
So far this year, 183 of 195 nations have issued long-term plans to tackle climate change, with a flurry of more than a dozen in the past week including from South Sudan, Kuwait, Yemen and Cuba.
The national plans, including a commitment from China in June to peak its rising carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, cover about 95 percent of world emissions, the UN said.
Yang Fuqiang, senior advisor on climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Global Times Sunday that the main objective of the annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) is to review the convention's implementation, and COP21 is more important since it hopes to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2 C.
"As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the world's second-largest economy, China has a growing sense of responsibility for curbing climate change and will play an important role at the conference," Yang said.
Gloomy forecast
Despite hopes for the COP21 to generate an agreement, differences remain on whether the deal should be legally binding.
Xie Zhenhua, China's special representative for climate change, said on November 19 at a press conference that he wished the upcoming Paris climate change conference can yield a powerful, ambitious and legally binding agreement.
Xie's statement came after US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Financial Times this month that any deal reached in Paris was "definitively not going to be a treaty."
A legally binding deal would prove to be politically impossible for the Obama administration since the Republican-dominated Congress will not ratify any treaty imposing legally binding cuts on the US.
Kerry's remarks drew a stern response from French President Francois Hollande, who said "if the agreement is not legally binding, there won't be an agreement, because that would mean it would be impossible to verify or control the undertakings that are made."
Another issue which remains under negotiation is how to divide the responsibilities between developed nations and developing ones.
In an interview with Reuters in October, Xi said developed and developing countries have different historical responsibilities for climate change, and different development needs and capabilities.
"Just like in a car race: it would be neither reasonable nor fair to apply the same speed requirements to cars which have run far ahead and those which have only just left the starting line. Developed countries should do more and lead the way in addressing climate change," Xi said.
"A uniform emissions reduction plan may not harm developed countries, but will definitely hinder the economic development and affect the people's lives in developing countries," Wang said.
He added that developed countries are supposed to raise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries with climate change and offer them green technologies, but they haven't fulfilled their promises.
China's goal
Analysts in general believe that the conference will yield some promising results but said that the outcome will not be significant enough to survive on its own and therefore will need continued support.
"The conference should not be treated as a one-off event, but should instead be viewed as an important start in the broader context of global climate change objectives," Yang said.
According to the Integral to China's Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), which was submitted in June this year, China aims to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 60 to 65 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
China also announced plans to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030, increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent while increasing the forest stock volume by around 4.5 billion cubic meters compared to 2005 levels.
China has also offered $3.1 billion to a South-South cooperation fund to help developing countries combat climate change.
"Compared with a few years ago, the Chinese government and the public are now more concerned with climate change issues. This rising awareness will help facilitate the climate agenda," Wang Gengchen, a research fellow with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Global Times.
