GREENHOUSE GASES

China will cut pollution in 2050

08-17-2009 | AFP

Panama Star BEIJING. China will start cutting its carbon emissions by 2050, its top climate change policymaker was quoted as saying in the Financial Times Saturday, the first time the nation has given a timeframe.

"China’s emissions will not continue to rise beyond 2050," said Su Wei, director general of the National Development and Reform Commission's climate change department, according to the paper.

China competes with the United States for the spot as the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases and intense interest is focused on its stance ahead of climate negotations in Copenhagen in December.

The December negotiations are aimed at hammering out a new climate change pact to replace the Kyoto protocol that expires in 2012. As a developing nation with low per-capita emissions, China is not required to set emissions cuts under the UN Framework on Climate Change, and it has so far also seemed reluctant to accept caps in the future.

For the regime that will emerge after 2012, Su in Saturday's Financial Times seemed to signal a willingness to compromise.

"China will not continue growing emissions without limit or insist that all nations must have the same per-capita emissions. If we did that, this earth would be ruined," he said, according to the paper.