Word: carbonization
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...main climate question for the G20 was how to finance global carbon emission reductions, and how to help developing nations that stand to lose the most from climate change adapt to a warmer world. That latter issue is a chief sticking point for the ongoing U.N. climate negotiations, in which governments are working to produce a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the Copenhagen summit in December. While poor nations have demanded funds to help them develop sustainably and prepare for warming, rich nations have so far been slow to promise money. "Climate financing is going to be absolutely...
Still, it's a notable change for a country that's been playing its cards tightly on the diplomatic stage. The U.S., after all, has yet to say for sure how much it is willing to cut its own carbon emissions, thanks to the slow movement of the Senate, which still has yet to fully take up a cap-and-trade bill. Both countries will need to do more - much more - if the U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen is to be a success, and they'll need to be more straightforward. But as the EDF's Yarnold said...
Diplomatically, China began laying down public markers in advance of this December's U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen, which activists hope will succeed where Kyoto failed: getting governments to agree on enforceable reductions in carbon emissions. Earlier this summer, Beijing said it would commit to outright reductions of its CO2 emissions more than 40 years from now - by the year 2050. That two-generation time frame, which disappointed some critics, reflects a central reality in China. A lot of its leaders (not to mention its citizens) are deeply distrustful of the extreme rhetoric coming from the West...
...surge in investment in energy-intensive industries like steel and cement in the early part of this decade has run its course. New housing developments all over the country are also far more energy efficient. With that new energy efficiency, Hu said, will come a reduction in China's carbon intensity, the amount of CO2 it emits for every unit of GDP. This, too, is plausible, since enhanced energy efficiency tends to reduce carbon emissions at the same time. But the world was looking for targets - hard numbers - and all Hu would say was that China would...
...ignoring climate change. In fact, they're grappling with it in a way that was unthinkable just two years ago. But the Chinese have also made it clear they will deal with climate change at their own pace, with as little economic dislocation as possible. When Beijing says its carbon emissions won't begin to go down until 2050, that's not a bargaining position. That's reality, and the rest of the world has to deal with...