China starts showing signs of turning green

[Guest guest]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020114a5.htm

 

China starts showing signs of turning green

 

By HISANE MASAKI

Staff writer

 

Is China -- a demographic and potentially economic

leviathan -- getting serious about international

cooperation to protect the environment after more than

two decades of putting development first?

Yes, maybe.

 

Acting on China's initiative, environmental ministers

from Asian and European countries, including Japan's

Yoriko Kawaguchi, will get together in Beijing later

this week.

 

It will be the first meeting of environmental chiefs

of the Asia-Europe Meeting -- a fledging cooperation

forum of 25 countries from the two regions -- although

ASEM has convened meetings of top leaders and of

foreign, economic and financial ministers.

 

The Beijing conference will focus on cooperation

between Asia and Europe on a wide range of

environmental issues, including global warming, ahead

of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which

is scheduled to be held in Johannesburg from late

August through early September.

 

" We welcome the initiative China took to convene the

ASEM environmental ministers' meeting, " a Japanese

government official said, requesting anonymity. " This

is proof that China is becoming interested in

international cooperation in the fight against

environmental problems. "

 

But the question remains: How far will the world's

most populous and increasingly ascendant global

economic power be willing to go in addressing

environmental concerns, especially global warming,

when the price may be the slowing of the pace of its

development?

 

China, which relies heavily on coal for energy, is by

far the largest producer of carbon dioxide, a major

greenhouse gas blamed for the global warming, in the

developing world.

 

After the United States, China is the second largest

carbon-dioxide emitter in the entire world, followed

by Russia and Japan. The U.S. and China alone account

for more than one-third of all carbon dioxide

emissions around the globe.

 

At the third conference of parties to the 1992 United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or

COP3, in Kyoto in December 1997, signatory countries

adopted a protocol imposing legally binding

requirements for industrialized countries alone to cut

their greenhouse gas emissions. The convention was

signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

 

At COP7 in Marrakech, Morocco, in November, the

convention signatory countries worked out specific

rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, paving the

way for industrialized countries to ratify the

document.

 

Japan and the 15-nation European Union will ratify the

Kyoto Protocol before the World Summit on Sustainable

Development in Johannesburg, despite the United

States' refusal to ratify the protocol under the

administration of President George W. Bush.

 

The Bush administration has claimed that the Kyoto

Protocol is fatally " flawed " because it would hurt the

U.S. economy and also because it inequitably imposes

no greenhouse gas-reduction obligations on developing

countries such as China.

 

Although Japan has decided to ratify the Kyoto

Protocol during a 150-day ordinary Diet session

convening Monday, it still hopes the U.S. will ratify

the protocol soon.

 

At COP7, Japan went so far as to propose beginning

discussions at COP8 this autumn about possible

greenhouse-gas reduction targets for developing

countries, in hopes of paving the way for the U.S to

join other industrialized countries in ratifying the

Kyoto Protocol.

 

But the proposal was adamantly rejected by most

developing countries, which insist that the

industrialized world is primarily to blame for the

global warming.

 

" We hope that China will become willing to participate

in efforts to cut back on emissions of carbon dioxide

and other greenhouse gases, " another Japanese

government official said, asking for anonymity. " If

the leading country in the developing world does so,

it will encourage other developing countries to follow

suit. "

 

The Japan Times: Jan. 14, 2002

© All rights reserved

 

 

 

 

 

 

Send FREE video emails in Mail!

http://promo./videomail/