China Emphasizes on Climate Change

On December 12， 2015， the historic Paris Agreement adopted with no objection by the 196 parties-of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) is seen as a new chapter for humanity in tackling climate change issues after tyhe year 2020.

Beijing issued for the first time three \"orange-level alerts\" for severe air pollution， smog and heavy fog on November 30， 2015. On the same day， the Climate Change Conference 2015 was opened in the suburb of Paris， where state heads from more than 150 nations gathered to jointly appeal to take urgent actions for addressing global climate warming.

Climate change has become a common concern among the general public. As we all live under the same sky， nobody can detach himself/herself from climate change.

It's a consensus to strike an agreement

The Paris Climate Change Conference was held during November 30 to December 11， aiming to negotiate under the new international framework the globalwarming counter measures- the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Before the conference， many experts have predicted that the chance to strike the first global agreement based on the past 18 years' efforts is slim.

Ban Ki-moon， Secretary General of the United Nations called all the nations across the world to make a commitment at the Paris Climate Change Conference for striking a \"powerful agreement\" to address climate change.

Samantha Smith， responsible officer of the \"global climate and energy initiative\" under the World Wildlife Fund， holds that it is \"highly possible\" to achieve an agreement in Paris despite the different requirements on the agreement content among various nations， as nearly all the nations hope to strike an agreement in a certain format.

At the current stage， the interna-tional community boasts unprecedented superiority to address climate change， because cooperation among governments， private departments and private social organizations， scientific consensus as well as economic approaches may support to achieve low-carbon development and enhance the adaptability to climate change， pointed out Rachel Kyte， Vice President ofWorld Bank and special envoy for climate change.

Kyte regards that all the above listed positive factors are related with China's proactive participation and support. Both the Joint Statement on Climate Change from the US Chinese Heads and the Joint Statement on Climate Change from the French Chinese Heads send a very definite signal that China is an active participant in the international community.

The Paris Agreement runs to 32 pages with 29 articles， including objective， mitigation， adaptation， loss and damage， finance， technology development and transfer， capacity building， and transparency of action and support. On the basis of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities， the Paris Agreement aims to hold the global average temperature rise to below 2.0 degrees Celrsius above pre-industrial levels and strives to limit the temperature increase t0 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The parties agreed to work to define a clear roadmap on ratcheting up climate finance to 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2020 while also setting a new goal before 2025 0n the provision of finance from the $100-billion floor.

Disagreements clearly exist during the negotiation

Although all the state heads indicated in their speeches to jointly address global warming， Paris Climate Change Conference saw slow progress from the negotiation in the past three to four days and the general negotiation evaluation is \"not optimistic\"， said Xie Zhenhua， special representative on China's climate change issue when interviewed in Paris on December 3.

Xie revealed that disagreement lies in many aspects on the negotiation table of the Paris Climate Change Conference.

First， whether the result of the conference is legally binding. Xie said that some nations regard that all the decisions made at the Paris Climate Change Conference have to be incorporated into the agreement so as to become legal binding. Some other nations， however， are concerned that some decisions may encounter barriers in terms of the domestic political procedures， therefore these nations hope that only some decisions are legally binding.

Second， how to make the global emission cut actions more powerful. So far nearly 180 nations have submitted their \"independent contribution objective\" to speafy their own emission cut scheme. But some agencies regard that the total emission cut amount in the \"independent contribution\" cannot realize the objective to control the temperature rise within 2 degrees. Confronted with such a situation， some nations hope to compulsorily require all the nations to intensify emission cut efforts via regular review; but some other nations are against this kind of \"intrusive\" regular review.

Third， funding is a problem. The developed countrieshave committed in Copenhagen to increase the capital support to the developing nations to annually USD 100 billion by the year of 2020， which hasn't been realized so far.

Fourth， disagreement lies in the relation between Paris Treaty and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Some nations regard that the Paris Treaty is the replacement of the Convention， whereas some other countries such as China treat Paris Treaty as the next element for the Convention.

Xie calls on all the negotiating nations to seldom use or never use \"NO\". Instead， a proactive attitude is needed to concern how to solve problems. Progress will only be made once all the participants are cooperative for the same direction.

In terms of the disagreements， Xie Zhenhua suggests the legal format \"agreement\" + \"decision\" for the Paris Treaty， a fiexible approach having both legal and political binding effect. About the emission cut review， Xie suggests to replace the detailed review by overall control. After learning the gap between overall individual contribution andemission cut demand， capital support from the developed countries may enable some nations to proactively intensify efforts on emission cut. Regarding the funding problem， the developed nations are supposed to continuously increase capital support to the developing nations with RMB 100 billion as a starting point after the year of 2020 and to define the road map and time table of the capital support. In addition， Xie stresses that the Paris Treaty shall be subordinate to the Convention and abide by the principle framework of the Convention as well as the \"common yet differentiated\" responsibility principle， but the details can be adjusted.

China is an active participant in fighting global climate change

China's efforts in fighting global climate change is worthy of praise， said Samantha Smith when recently interviewed with Xinhua News Agency.

Smith spoke highly of China for its efforts in restricting greenhouse gas emission and in adhering to the \"common yet differentiated responsibility\" principle proposed in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Although China is a developing country， it has made great commitment in terms of addressing climate change via \"individual contribution by nations\"， and it has also announced to spend RMB 20 billion in setting up \"south-south cooperation fund on China climate change\".

At the opening ceremony of the Paris climate change conference held on November 30， Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech themed around \"jointly build a win- win， equal and reasonable governance mechanism on climate change， in which Xi clarified China's significant standpoints regarding global climate governance.

Xi said that the Paris Treaty shall consider the varying national circumstances and respect the different countries， especially the difference in terms of national policy， capacity construction， domestic economy and structure among the developing countries. Combating climate change shall not discourage the developing countries' rational demands for eliminating poverty and raising people's living standard. The developed countries are supposed to share more knowledge and take bigger responsibilities in a bid to achieve win- win cooperation. China will register the peaking for carbon dioxide emission by the year of 2030 and will endeavor to increase 4.5 billion cubic meters of forest area based on the level of 2005.

President Xi emphasizes that China has always been an active participant in the global course for addressing climate change. So far China has turned into the world's biggest nation for energy saving as well as for new renewable energy utilization. China has clearly put forward that the year of 2030 is the emission peaking year and it strives to cut carbon emission t0 65% by 60% on the basis of 2005， raise the ratio of non-fossil energy to around 20%， initiate the \"package\" objective of national carbon emission trading system starting from 2017， and develop a series of energy and climate policies.

Financial Times recognizes China's efforts in fighting climate change and points out that China's large-scale investments in nuclear power， hydropower， solar power and wind power generation will weaken the role of coal in the national energy mix. It is estimated that by 2020 coalwill account for around 62% in China's energy consumption， lower than the current ratio of 64%. According to Yang Fuqiang， senior advisor ofthe US environment protection organization Natural Resources Defense Counal (NRDC)， China only needs to eliminate the industrial coal-fired boilers for realizing around one half of the emission cut objective.