China Unveils Program on Global Warming

China promised Monday to better control emissions of greenhouse gases, unveiling a national program to combat global warming, but rejected mandatory caps on emissions as unfair to countries still trying to catch up with the developed West.

While the program offered few new concrete targets for reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to global warming, it outlined steps China would take to meet a previously announced government goal of improving overall energy efficiency in 2010 by 20 percent over 2005’s level.
Given an economy that has been growing at better than 9 percent annually over the past 25 years, the plan’s overall effect, if implemented, would be to slow the increase in greenhouse gases, not reduce their absolute amount.

China has fallen under increasing pressure internationally to take more forceful measures to curb releases of greenhouse gases. The country relies on coal – among the dirtiest of fuels – to meet two-thirds of its energy needs and is projected to surpass the U.S. as the world’s No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases sometime in the next two years.

In explaining the new program, Ma said global warming was largely caused by 200 years of unrestrained industrialization by the West, and it would be unfair to impose mandatory emissions caps on China and other developing nations.

Guardian