China shrugs off EU calls for climate change action - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

China shrugs off EU calls for climate change action
Tue May 29, 2007 10:25AM BST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China shrugged off on Tuesday calls from the
European Union to take more action on climate change, saying it
was still a developing country and it was up to industrialised
nations to shoulder more responsibility.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner stressed
the need for China to do more to combat rising global temperatures
during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in
Germany.

-snip-

China could overtake the United States to become the top emitter
of greenhouse gases as early as this year, but Beijing has rejected
caps on its emissions growth.

Jiang repeated calls for more technology transfers from developed
countries and said China, whose energy consumption has boomed
in line with its years of double-digit economic growth, was trying to
become more efficient and reduce dependence on coal.

But she said the onus was on rich countries to do more.

-snip-

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKPEK3178620070529

[acmavm]

1. 'Rich countries'? Like the US? We have a class of obscenely rich

co-called citizens. As for the country, we're bankrupt. And friggin' China is holding all the IOUs.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Since China's per capita emissions are about one third the EU's, they have a point

and they're about one sixth the US's.

[phantom power]

3. They have a point, and yet that point won't save them when the dying starts.

Or any of us either. What a miserable thing to watch. Nations arguing about who has the most right to keep spewing GHGs, while the biosphere starts to unravel around them all.