Word: kyoto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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 key if we're going to have a deal in Copenhagen...
...announcement were fuzzy - aside from the fact that it would be called the Panda Standard - the move is an early step toward creating a voluntary carbon-trading system in China. Although China is still very far from accepting the mandatory carbon caps used by countries covered by the Kyoto Protocol - Hu emphasized the importance of economic development first in his speech - the Panda Standard is a sign that China could see a stake in the creation of a global carbon market. "Any carbon market inside China has the potential to be a game changer," says David Yarnold, the executive director...
China is already involved in the emerging global carbon market - companies in the developed world can sponsor carbon-cutting projects in China under the Kyoto Protocol to earn offsets. But the CBEEX-BlueNext collaboration could allow Chinese companies themselves to begin to get involved in the offset market, just as voluntary markets in the U.S. have done for American companies. For now, the standard will focus on agriculture and forestry projects, with expectations that it will grow to cover Chinese transportation, power and manufacturing. "We think that Chinese companies are very aware of their greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change...
...market economics have brought, had only just begun to spew CO2 into the atmosphere, and it was already the No. 1 emitter. If climate change was the great global threat that the doomsayers believed it was and if there was to be a more effective global response post Kyoto (the 1997 treaty that failed, 96-0, in the U.S. Senate), China's emissions were going to have to be dealt with. And Beijing knew it. (See pictures of the world's most polluted places...
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...