Durban (CNS) -- China is anticipated by most of the developed, island, and least developed countries (LDC) to join the agreement on global emissions reduction and will stick to these commitments to serve domestic sustainable development goals and counter global climate change, said He Jiankun, an expert in the Chinese delegation attending the ongoing Durban Climate Change Conference, Saturday.
China's energy consumption grew by 120 percent between 2000 and 2010, taking up about 20 percent of global total; its carbon emissions proportion almost doubled, to 23 percent, with an emission load per capita far beyond the world average, He admitted.
Before the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference China set a goal for 2020 to cut down on its carbon emissions per GDP unit by 40 to 45 percent of 2005 levels, and this has been integrated with its national plan for economic and social development.
So far, China's soaring energy demands have posed huge challenges to its reduction mission, He said. It is hoped shifting part of the strategic emphasis away from stimulating the economic boom towards encouraging the low-carbon industry and a new consumption pattern will be part of the solution.
He acknowledges that it is still a long haul however for the biggest consumer in the world to exercise such stringent restraints while trying to satisfy its thirst for domestic growth.
