Real costs of stopping climate change still unclear

• Source: Global Times
• [00:08 November 17 2009]
• Comments

According to him, "There are lots of risks associated with being increasingly dependent on fossil fuels like gas and oil. Approximately 70 percent of direct energy in China comes from coal, which is expensive to mine and rail links often struggle to efficiently move it around the country."

So how will China be affected and what effect will China have in Copenhagen?

Quite simply, everyone seems to be waiting to see what others will do – no one quite prepared to be the first to show their cards.

According to Edmondson, developed nations need to be cautious about simply giving China handouts.

"China's economy should develop from within," he says, "if industries are simply handed cash then it could stifle innovation, something badly needed in China's low-margin economy."

There is an expectation that China and India will make certain nonbinding commitments and these will probably come in the shape of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA).

NAMAs are projects that can include anything from renewable energy to deforestation projects, an important aspect of them being the provision that they can be measured, reported and verified by the international community.

The scope and scale of these projects hasn't been finalized, but they are a potential answer to many Asian countries' fears that renewable energy projects will come at too great an economic cost and will cause too much damage in the short term.

China signaled months ago a potential relaxing of its tough stance on the developed world's position regarding carbon emissions. China's top climate change ambassador, Yu Qingtai, suggested that it might be more flexible on previous demands that developed nations pledge to reduce their carbon emissions 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Finally, one real sticking point might be the West's reluctance to hand over intellectual property (IP) to contribute to technology transfer.

"IP transfer is unlikely to happen since the incentive is lost if the state forces companies to hand it over," says Edmondson.

At home in China, it is essential thatmore is done to curb the increase in the rate of emissions, which will be an intricate process and will need careful but necessary management.

A joint study by the World Bank and the Chinese government suggested that the financial cost to China could be up to 6 percent of GDP.

We will have to see whether China, and the world, can pay these costs.

The author is a Beijing-based freelance journalist, producer and cameraman