GLOBAL CLIMATE DEBATE

China Refuses Emissions Cuts

A cap on carbon emissions could be another major sticking point between the United States and China in the quest for a world climate treaty.

Chinese state media reports that the country's top climate change negotiator, Su Wei, has said the country's carbon emissions must increase because the economy was developing.

China "could not and should not" set an upper limit on greenhouse gas emissions at the current stage, Su told a meeting on climate change policy in Beijing on Wednesday.

Su did say that China is committed to making its economy more energy-efficient.

Beijing has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity -- the measure of greenhouse-gas emissions per unit of gross domestic product -- by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels. Su said the pledge would be a binding part of China's next two five-year economic development plans.

Only a day earlier, President Hu Jintao told a high-level Communist Party meeting that China must "recognise the importance, urgency and difficulty of dealing with climate change".

The U.S. and China also differ over whether the Copenhagen Accord should be the blueprint for a stronger deal that could be achieved this year.

In documents submitted to the U.N. Environment Programme last week, U.S. negotiators praised the accord as the basis for any agreement that would come from the next world conference later this year in Cancun, Mexico.

But China's submission calls for the use of only existing U.N. texts, which lack firm emissions targets.