Despite global financial turmoil, a big increase in funds and technology is necessary, said Gao, chief of the climate-change office in the National Development and Reform Commission. The super-ministry steers economic policy in China, which many experts say has passed the United States as the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
Gao said that China will detail its technology proposal at a conference in Beijing next week. He indicated that the country will press its own demands for assistance to developing nations, rather than just resisting calls for acceptance of emissions targets.
China’s 1.3 billion people, high rate of economic growth and increasing export levels have pushed up its greenhouse-gas emissions. Under the Kyoto Protocol, China and other developing economies are not bound by specific goals to contain emissions. Negotiations on a post-Kyoto pact are to culminate in Copenhagen in December 2009.
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