For those who think diplomacy is all about dressing well and
rubbing shoulders with stars, they should try having Zheng
Guoguang's job.
Zheng, director of the China Meteorological Administration
(CMA), might be one of the country's most stressed-out diplomats.
He spends many of his work hours negotiating with overseas
counterparts, which can be quite taxing in this age of
environmental alarm as countries scramble to enact protective
legislation.
"The discussion and evaluation work is intense, and discussion
about keeping or canceling certain terms is so heated," Zheng said
on the sidelines of the 17th Party congress, which closed its
curtains yesterday in Beijing.
"The negotiation sometimes is like a battle without gunfire,"
said Zheng, the 48-year-old CMA head who ascended to the current
position this April.
Despite pressure from developed countries, Zheng said he was
quite confident in negotiations and that he gained strength from
the solid efforts China has made to address global warming
issues.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol set the principle of "common but
differentiated responsibility". Although every country has a common
responsibility to protect the world's environment, individual
countries have different degrees of obligation since they have
varying capabilities and are at different stages of
development.
China, which has tens of millions of people trying to solve
problems with basic "survival emissions", is not in the same
category as more developed countries, which should shoulder most of
the blame for global warming because of their greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions over the past 200 years, Zheng said.
"Instead, China is the best player among all developing
countries in environmental protection," Zheng said. "We have kicked
off a national action plan and committed to cut energy consumption
even though there is no international boundary on us."
Zheng said the CMA also played a key role in exchanging with
weather officials from Taiwan. Although Taiwan authorities have
consistently set obstacles to prevent the exchanges, the mainland
has always kept the door open and shared with them whatever weather
information they need, said Zheng.
"We felt in the same family every time our Taiwan counterparts
came here," Zheng said. "We drank together, danced together and
sang together. We welcomed them with the highest sincerity."
Back on the mainland, Zheng is probably lucky that the country's
weather forecasting mechanism now draws fewer complaints as its
accuracy has improved a great deal, which has helped save numerous
economic losses and death tolls.
Typhoons caused fewer casualties and lower economic losses this
year than in previous years, even as more of the potentially
destructive storms slammed the Chinese mainland.
"This is a record low in terms of the number of people killed by
typhoons," Zheng said.
Accurate forecasting and the timely distribution of emergency
messages to the public are believed to be the key reasons for the
improvement.
In a bid to quickly distribute accurate emergency weather
information, the CMA has collaborated with the information and
technology and communications departments to send messages via the
Internet, television, radio, mobile TV screens and cell phones.
(China Daily October 22, 2007)
