UK climate economist warns US of trade boycott

Yahoo News 19 Nov 10;

LONDON (AFP) – A British climate change economist at the heart of international negotiations seeking a greenhouse gas deal said Friday that the US faces a trade boycott if it fails to rein in its carbon emissions.

Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the British government's 2006 report on the economics of climate change, warned the US that many countries would shun its goods if they deemed them to be "dirty."

"The US will increasingly see the risks of being left behind, and 10 years from now they would have to start worrying about being shut out of markets because their production is dirty," Stern told The Times newspaper.

"If they persist in being slow about reducing emissions, US exports will start to look more carbon intensive."

Stern advises several G20 countries and his 2006 Stern review is regarded as the most in-depth and well-known study into climate change economics.

World leaders will meet at the UN climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 10 days' time to try and kickstart emissions negotiations which faltered at the Copenhagen conference last December.

Stern said that countries who have pledged to reduce their emissions would resent competition from "dirty" exports. He highlighted aircraft, cars and machine tools as goods which could face restrictions.

"If you are charging properly for carbon and other people are not, you will take that into account," he said. "Many of the more forward-looking people in the US are thinking about this."

US President Barack Obama pledged before the Copenhagen conference to cut US emissions by 17 percent on 2005 levels by 2020, but has been thwarted by Congress.

Any new US commitments within the next two years are highly unlikely following the Republican party's gains in the midterm elections.

China softens stance ahead of climate negotiations
Yahoo News 19 Nov 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – China appeared Friday to soften its stance on a sticking point in UN climate change negotiations, the issue of verifying developing countries' emissions reductions.

Beijing does not "believe that increasing transparency will be a problem," at global talks opening later this month in Mexico, said Huang Huikang, the Chinese foreign ministry's representative at the talks.

"This is a strong signal," Huang told reporters. "In the past few months we have never expressed so publicly that, in principle, we do not see this as an issue."

China and the United States, the world's two biggest sources of greenhouse gases, have been at odds over how to rein in such emissions, casting a shadow over the talks in Cancun set from November 29 to December 10.

The meeting is the latest round of negotiations in a long effort under the United Nations to forge a global climate change treaty.

Huang in his up-beat comments said that "emissions reductions achieved by developing countries with technical and financial support from developed countries can be measurable, reportable and verifiable."

The United States has asked China to commit to curbing its carbon emissions and wants developing countries to agree to more transparency and scrutiny of their claims on emissions reductions and other climate efforts.

China in turn has accused Washington of using the transparency issue to divert attention from its failure to pass laws to reduce domestic emissions.

It was not immediately clear how China's apparent new flexibility would affect the transparency of its own efforts to fight climate change.

China has set a 2020 target of reducing carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product -- or carbon intensity -- by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels. That amounts to a vow of energy efficiency, but emissions will continue to soar.

However, China has so far strongly resisted the suggestion that it should allow outside verification of whether it is achieving its climate goals.

China rules out linking climate aid to transparency
Chris Buckley Reuters AlertNet 19 Nov 10;

BEIJING, Nov 19 (Reuters) - China said on Friday it will not agree to any deal tying climate change aid from rich nations to its acceptance of tighter international checks of its greenhouse gas emissions, which it said will grow for some time.

Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's special representative for climate change talks, laid bare rifts between Beijing and rich countries, especially the United States, that could trouble high-level negotiations in Cancun, Mexico.

China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity, will be a key player when almost 200 governments meet in Cancun from late this month to try to agree on a "green fund" for poor countries and other building blocks for a comprehensive new agreement to combat global warming.

Cancun is meant to be the stepping stone to a legally binding deal next year that would lock governments into reducing the greenhouse gas pollution holding solar heat in the atmosphere and threatening to trigger dangerous climate change.

Premier Wen Jiabao chaired a meeting of Chinese officials steering climate policy that issued a statement that their government would "work with all sides to achieve a positive outcome in Cancun," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But even modest gains at the talks appear tough after bickering between China and the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitters that have also sparred over trade and currency ties.

The U.S., European Union and other governments want China, India and other big emerging economies to shoulder firmer international commitments to control and eventually cut their emissions, and to subject those emissions to tighter monitoring.

Huang said Beijing would not yield on what he said was China's right to make economic growth an overriding priority.

"Recently, we've found that some people have always been making a fuss about so-called (emissions) transparency," he told a news conference.

The key to success in climate negotiations, he said, was advanced economies leading with big emissions cuts and ensuring more aid and clean technology to help poorer nations.

"These are unconditional and should not be linked to anything else," he said of rich nations' efforts.

"This is a strong signal. Previously, we haven't so strongly stressed that as a matter of principle we believe that improving transparency is not an issue."

China's emissions would keep growing for some time, Huang added, but he did not specify for how long.

"China's overriding priority will be to develop its economy, eliminate poverty and raise people's welfare, and our energy consumption and (greenhouse gas) emissions will experience reasonable growth for some time," he said.

Huang's comments underscored the hurdles to crafting a climate treaty that will accommodate the competing demands of emerging and advanced economies

Governments failed to agree last year on a new legally binding deal. A meeting in Copenhagen last December ended in rancour between rich and developing countries and created a loose, non-binding accord with many gaps.

China's emissions have more than doubled since 2000 and have outstripped the United States'. In 2009 its emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels were 7.5 billion tonnes, or 24 percent of the global total, according to BP .

Beijing has made a domestic vow to reduce "carbon intensity", the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each dollar of economic growth, by 40-45 percent by 2020 compared with 2005. But it says that goal will not be turned into a binding international target.

(Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)