Government Adviser Breaks with Beijing, Promotes Greenhouse Gas Reductions

Reuters reports that influential government adviser Hu Angang is breaking with Beijing to promote the economic and diplomatic benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Hu is proposing a plan to reduce China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2030:

China should commit to cuts in a global pact, even if the United States resists, Hu said. Washington refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, under which China and other poorer nations need not accept emissions limits.

“Like joining the WTO, this should be used as international pressure to spur our own transformation,” he added, referring to the World Trade Organisation, which China joined in 2001.

“If China makes a 1 percent error in handling climate change, that could mean 100 percent failure in making agreement.”