GLOBAL CLIMATE DEBATE

DISPATCH FROM CHINA: China Wants Green-Tech from Rich Nations

BEIJING - China will press industrial nations to share their latest green technologies at lower costs with developing countries at next month’s climate change convention in Copenhagen, according to a Chinese delegation member.   

“Technology is the only path for China to get out of its current dilemma (between reducing carbon emissions and the need for economic development),” said Wang Can, Professor of Environmental Studies at Qinghua University, who will bring to Copenhagen a detailed proposal on cross-border exchange of green technologies. China believes that technologically-advanced countries like the US should do more than selling equipment to developing countries. “Technology transfer should lead to local production of such equipment, which will significantly reduce the production costs and prices,” Wang Can said at a high-level forum hosted by six Chinese ministries.  

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) states that environmentally-friendly technological know-how should be provided “on concessional and preferential terms.” But rich countries and developing nations have interpreted the term differently. 

Countries including China see the statement as implying that industrial countries should provide their latest green-tech quickly and cheaply. Businesses and many governments in the developed world, however, see this interpretation as naïve and against commercial sense. 

Wang Can said developed countries have mostly shared with China outdated technologies. He used the example of the production of polysilicon, a material widely used in the making of solar cells. “China is roughly twenty years behind the U.S. in this field, but so far, it’s been very difficult for China to obtain the latest technology from the U.S.” 

Wang Can also blames Intellectual Property Rights protection for impeding the spread of technologies that can help combat global warming. “The production cost of wind power is at least 10% higher, because China has to pay a fee for IP.” 

China’s proposal suggests that developed countries set aside a portion of their governmental revenues to facilitate the flow of green technologies to the developing world. It also proposes the establishment of an institution under the UNFCCC that will monitor rich countries’ efforts on enabling the distribution of environmentally sound technologies. 

Chinese officials at the forum again confirmed that Beijing won’t commit to an overall cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, China pledges to lower its “carbon intensity,” although it has not set a quantitative goal so far.  

Carbon intensity is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of economic output. With China's rapid economic expansion, it’s possible that the country’s greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow, even if it slashes its carbon intensity. 

“China will keep building up its heavy industries in the next ten to fifteen years,” said Wang Yi, Deputy Director of the Institute of Policy and Management at the China Academy of Science. He predicts that China’s population will peak at 1.5 billion around 2030 and that energy consumption per capita will grow as Chinese people’s living standards improve. 

 “It’s obviously unfair,” said Wang Yi, “for other countries to demand that China reach its carbon emissions peak by 2020.” 

Nevertheless, Wang Yi said China is committed to advancing towards a low-carbon economy. “It’s not a question of whether we’ll do it. It’s only about how fast we can do it.”