China considers spelling out own greenhouse gas goals

BEIJING, June 15 (Reuters) China will hold down per-capita volumes of greenhouse gases causing global warming and is studying how to spell out domestic emissions goals, officials said seeking to stress cooperation on the issue.

China unveiled its national plan for coping with global warming last week. But it also said rich countries were mainly to blame for greenhouse pollution to date since they industrialised, without any restrictions, by burning oil, gas and coal that release carbon dioxide.

Officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology sought to put a friendlier face on the message, vowing their country's per-capita emissions would not follow the same steep rise as the West's and holding out the possibility of clearer goals.

''We're exploring a new path of development. We won't let per-capita emissions reach a high level and then go down,'' minister Wan Gang told a news conference in Beijing yesterday.

China has vowed to cut the energy used to generate each unit of economic activity by 20 percent of 2005 levels by 2010, but it has not spelled out quantified targets for greenhouse gas pollution that is warming the planet.

Wan said the government was working to turn the energy-saving targets into goals for carbon dioxide emissions.

''The specific techniques and methods for converting this (energy target) into carbon dioxide emissions are being studied,'' he said.

China plans an international conference to forge cooperation on this and other technical challenges, Vice Minister Liu Yanhua said.

''I feel there will be broad international cooperation,'' he told Reuters after the briefing. ''No matter what the viewpoints, they can all be explored.'' The levels could be specified in emissions per person or per GDP unit, Liu said. ''They'll all be there,'' he said.

The emphasis on cooperation came after last week's unveiling of the climate change plan by Ma Kai, chief of economy policy, who bluntly warned that restricting poor countries' growth would unleash problems worse than climate change itself.

Ma came across as ''confrontational'', said Shi Yinhong, an international security expert at the People's University of China.

''It's not a question of the content of the message but how it's delivered, and appearing too hardline doesn't serve China's interests,'' Shi said. ''A milder approach means China doesn't have to stand out as the target of so much international criticism.'' Wan, recently appointed the country's first minister in 35 years who is not a Communist Party member, said he welcomed aspects of the agreement reached last week among Group of Eight powers to ''substantially'' cut greenhouse gas emissions.

''For developing countries, now the biggest challenge is how to apply advanced technology in the course of development, and mobilise society and methods to reduce carbon dioxide,'' he said.

Developing countries do not have to commit to emissions goals under the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol climate change pact, which ends in 2012.

Pressure is building on rich nations, such as the United States, and big emerging powers to sign up to targets and begin talks on a long-term climate deal at a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December.

The G8 nations agreed to push for a launch at the Indonesia talks and to work out a broader world pact by the end of 2009 to succeed the protocol, which obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

The International Energy Agency has said China could emerge as the top emitter of carbon dioxide as early as this year. But China has said average per-capita emissions from fossil fuels in 2004 were 3.65 tonnes of carbon dioxide, about a third of the average for rich economies.

Reuters AKD VP0425