Chinese Climate Negotiator Provides Candid Take on What Happened in Copenhagen

On August 6, Yu Qingtai – until recently China’s special representative for climate change negotiations – made a speech at Peking University’s School of International Studies, in which he discussed the history and future prospects of climate-change negotiations.

According to Yu, China played a decisive role at December’s global-warming summit in Copenhagen. He also said that, as all are born equal, China cannot commit to doing more than its historical responsibilities require and, during negotiations, it must put its own national interests first. This is a summary of his speech.

At the United Nations climate-change conference in Bali in 2007, a series of resolutions – collectively known as the Bali Roadmap – launched a two year negotiation process. The crux of the negotiations throughout has been whether or not to maintain the principle of nations having “common but differentiated responsibilities”.

During negotiations, developed nations have done all they can to water down, reinterpret or refute this principle. Those developed nations are the cause of climate change as they have been releasing greenhouse gases for a long time, and the law dictates that they have a duty to cut emissions first and to provide the funds and technology for developing nations’ own emission cuts. While developed countries have made some efforts in this regard, they have done nowhere near as much as they claim.

The global financial crisis sent the developed world into recession. The cost of energy-saving and emissions-reduction measures has increased; the business and economic sectors have become increasingly opposed to the process; and attempts have been made to offload the problem onto developing nations – requiring them to make commitments that far exceeded both their historical responsibilities and their actual capabilities.

This would sacrifice the interests of developing countries in order to maintain and further advance the developed world’s lead. Developing nations meanwhile naturally resist what they see as selfish and unreasonable demands.

Prior to Copenhagen, some rich nations came to believe compromise from major developing nations would bring other countries into line – and so they turned their attention to China. They hoped to achieve a breakthrough with the biggest greenhouse-gas emitter among developing nations, and to put pressure on China and India to do more.

What Happened in Copenhagen

The Copenhagen talks, in essence, were a continuation of the struggle over “common but differentiated responsibilities”. Developing nations ultimately withstood huge pressure from their developed counterparts, defended their own right to develop and achieved a positive, albeit intermediate, outcome from the conference.

I believe that the Chinese government remained positive and calm in the face of enormous pressure. First, by announcing programs and targets for the coming decade prior to the talks, the government continued to show the world that China is a responsible nation. Those plans were unconditional, as we do not believe that the future of mankind should be used as a bargaining chip – a position that contrasts sharply with the stance of developed nations.

Second, the Chinese government made no concessions on the country’s right to develop. The European Union said that China’s emissions targets were actually set at levels that would be reached anyway and were equivalent to doing nothing. They did not consider that their proposed 30% cuts have a long list of conditions attached, yet when we aim to cut carbon-intensity by 40% they say we are doing nothing. Premier Wen Jiabao made it clear that China’s targets had been carefully determined and were not open to negotiation, firmly rebuffing developed-nation demands.