Reuters 22 Oct 09;
BEIJING (Reuters) - Climate change officials and advocates from the United States and China have gathered this week in Beijing to try to reach a common understanding before high-profile negotiations later this year.
The meeting of the world's top two greenhouse gas emitters precedes President Barack Obama's visit to China in November, and a key international conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year that aims to agree on a new pact to fight global warming.
WHY ARE CHINA AND THE U.S. IMPORTANT TO CLIMATE CHANGE?
Fast-growing China recently became the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activities. The United States, now the number two emitter, is the biggest source of accumulated greenhouse gases from human activity collected in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.
China and the United States together account for about 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2008, China's emissions of carbon dioxide reached 6.8 billion tons, an increase of 178 percent over levels in 1990, according to the IWR, a German renewable energy institute. U.S. emissions rose 17 percent to 6.4 billion tons.
The average American is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equal to 25.0 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, compared to 5.8 tons for the average Chinese, according to figures compiled by the World Resources Institute.
China belongs to the Kyoto Protocol and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which now govern global efforts to fight global warming. Those treaties do not oblige developing countries to accept binding limits on emissions.
The United States belongs to the UN Framework Convention but never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for industrialized nations through 2012.
WHAT STEPS IS THE U.S. PROPOSING?
Obama has said he wants to cut U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent further by 2050. The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation that would cut U.S. emissions by about 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2010 and 83 percent by 2050. A proposed Senate bill lays out emissions cuts by 2020 of 20 percent below 2005 levels.
U.S. officials have disagreed over whether it will be possible for Congress to pass climate change legislation for Obama to sign into law by the end of the year.
WHAT HAS CHINA DONE?
China's current five-year plan calls for a 20 percent cut in energy intensity -- the amount of energy used to produce each unit of economic worth -- from 2006 to the end of 2010. Officials have said that step has averted large amounts of emissions.
President Hu Jintao vowed last month that China would cut carbon intensity, or carbon dioxide emissions per unit of economic output, by a "notable margin" by 2020 compared to 2005.
China has also committed to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020.
WHERE DO THEY AGREE AND DISAGREE?
The U.S. and China signed a memorandum of understanding in July encouraging cooperation on climate change and cleaner energy, and Obama and Hu are likely to unveil more clean energy initiatives when Obama visits next month.
China and other poorer countries have said the emissions cuts proposed by rich countries, including the United States, fall far short of what is needed.
China is resisting pressure from the United States and other developed countries to agree to a specific emissions target or peak in Copenhagen. It says wealthy countries must lead the way with big emissions cuts, while poor countries are given time to develop and receive climate-change aid.
China and the United States also disagree on what elements of China's emissions control efforts should be incorporated as a binding element in any new international agreement.
(Sources: Reuters; World Resources Institute, "China, the United States, and the Climate Change Challenge"; IWR)
(Reporting by Chris Buckley)
