China should play a lead role in "saving our planet" and if
prompt actions are not taken to adapt to climate change, the
progress of human development in developing countries could "stall
or even reverse", according to a UN Human Development Report
released Wednesday.
Entitled "Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided
world", the report said that although China is to become the
world's largest source of CO2 emissions over the next decade, "a
person from the United States still emits on average five times
more carbon than a person in China."
Developing countries such as China, which are "rapidly growing
in emissions", should play a lead role in finding common solutions
in the effort to save the planet, said Khalid Malik, United Nations
Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) Resident Representative in China, at Wednesday's press
conference on the launch of the global report in China.
"International technology transfer is crucial to helping reduce
carbon emissions in developing countries which are increasingly
vulnerable to global climate change," the report said.
"Climate change is now a common concern for all of humanity and
should be dealt with through concerted global action," it said.
The report argues that compared to developed countries, which
take up 13 percent of world's population and produce over half of
CO2 emissions, China has a small per capita carbon footprint by
international standards.
By 2015, per capita emissions from China are projected at 5.2
tons, which is about one fourth of the 19.3 tons in the United
States and a third of the average in developed countries as a
whole, the report showed.
"If every person in the developing world had the same carbon
footprint as the average person in Canada or the United States, we
would need nine planets to absorb all the pollution. We however
have only one planet," said Malik.
The report argued that the world's richest countries have a
"historic responsibility" to take the lead in balancing the carbon
budget by cutting emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050.
Developed countries should adopt a new mechanism to "transfer
clean energy technology", such as "clean coal" to developing
countries, allowing them to improve energy efficiency and promote
the use of renewable energy, it said.
Emission reduction and energy saving is prominently shown in
China's 11th Five-year Plan, such as the use of clean coal
technology to enhance energy efficiency, and an early transition to
carbon capture and storage, the shutdown of inefficient power
plants and industrial enterprises, and promoting renewable
energy.
The Renewable Energy Law, promulgated in 2005, says about 17
percent of energy in China will be produced from renewable sources
by 2020, more than twice today's level.
The report also warned that rapid economic growth has greatly
slowed a steep decline in poverty.
"The poor, who have the lightest carbon footprint and bear no
responsibility for the ecological debt we are running up, are the
most vulnerable and will be affected the most by global warming,"
said Malik.
China's average temperatures by 2020 are projected to be 1.1 to
2 degrees centigrade higher than the 1961-1990 level, it said.
"If current emission patterns continue, two thirds of China's
glaciers, including Tianshan mountains in northwest Xinjiang, are
likely to disappear by 2060, with the remaining ones gone before
the end of the century," it said.
A similar situation is occurring in South and East Asia where
changes in rainfall, temperatures and the access to water, would
cause great losses in food production, thwarting efforts of poverty
reduction.
Statistics show half of China's 128 million rural poor and 40
percent of the country's farmland might be affected by climate
change. Extreme weather such as droughts in northeastern China and
Yangtze River floods have been common over the past few years.
"Failure to act on climate change will have grave consequences
for human development in poor areas of the world, and it will
undermine efforts to tackle poverty," Malik added.
"Prevention is better than cure," it said, adding every one
dollar invested in monitoring natural disasters in developing
countries could prevent losses up to seven dollars.
Statistics show the investment of 3 billion U.S. dollars for
five decades before 2000 by the Chinese government for flood
defense, is estimated to have averted losses worth about 12 billion
U.S. dollars.
The annual report, compiled by a collective of international
experts commissioned by the UNDP, has been published since 1990. It
deals with topics concerning the "severe challenges faced by
mankind".
The 2007/2008 report, based on the latest findings from the
study of climate change, lays a foundation for a key meeting in
Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a successor to the current Kyoto
Protocol which aims to achieve a substantial emission reduction by
2012.
(Xinhua News Agency November 29, 2007)
