Given that China’s emissions continue to rise – as all prognosis agree they will – it is simply not possible to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
”You should not target China to fulfill the two degree target. That is just a vision. Reality has deviated from that vision. We do not think that target provides room for developing countries,” says Dai Yande, deputy chief of China’s Energy Research Institute, according to the Guardian.
His comments follow the release this week of a report that states that even under the most optimistic scenarios – with huge domestic and foreign investments going into clean energy – China’s greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow during the next decades. The study was conducted by a number of universities and other institutions, including the global conservation organization WWF.
”China emits most carbon in the world. We don’t want this hat, but we may have to wear it for many more years,” says Yang Fuqiang, director for global climate solutions at WWF China.
Still, Dai Yande of the Energy Research Institute stresses that the global warming currently seen is mainly caused by industrialized countries:
”Twenty percent of the world’s population takes 80 percent of wealth and emits 70 percent of greenhouse gases. I think two degrees is a vision that is difficult to fulfill because few countries have reached Kyoto (Protocol) targets, except the UK and some others in the EU.”
According to the Guardian, the comments from Dai Yande ”are not official government policy, but they are consistent with a hardening of positions ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit (the UN conference) in December
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