Climate change is a scientific and political issue. And development boundaries today are practically defined by emission limits of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
In such a situation, China has to unite the rest of the developing world and make every effort possible to steer global climate politics toward a fair and ethical foundation. This is especially important because the US always binds its GHG emission to the transparency of China's programs to fight climate change. The complicated issue presents China with three challenges.
First, carbon emissions should not be calculated by taking an entire country as a single unit. Many international authorities, including the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have been analyzing global carbon emission according to national and regional emission levels.
If the right to development is central to human rights, GHG emission should be calculated on per capita and not per country basis. It is groundless to blame China for its total GHG emission without considering its huge population.
It is especially important here for China to bring India on board, because the two countries' cases are similar. Beijing and New Delhi need to join hands to promote and strengthen the notion of per capita emission and declare the per country calculation model as outdated.
To take the fight further and relieve Beijing of the stress caused by the West's harking on China's total GHG emission, the domestic media should highlight the country's considerably low per capita emission compared with the industrialized world.
Second, per capita emission should be calculated according to consumption and production levels both. To fulfill the basic needs of human beings is the basic aim of economic development. And these needs are met by consumption.
Consumption, however, should not mean meeting the demands of extravagant lifestyles and luxurious living, which is one of the main reasons behind the inequitable distribution of development resources in the world. The lifestyles of people in the developed countries are dependent on high consumption, which incidentally is a leading cause of global warming. In such a case, it is not fair to calculate GHG emission on the basis of production alone.
It's true that the developed countries, with exceptions of course, have checked their GHG emission in a better way than their developing counterparts. But they have done so by sweeping their emission problems under the developing world's carpet. The result: Global carbon emission levels continue to rise.
The developed world has shifted its high-energy consuming and pollution-intensive industries to the developing countries, increasing their total carbon emission levels and causing extensive damage to the environment.
The developing countries have been forced to emit huge volumes of GHGs to set up international-level industrial structures and marketing systems in order to meet the demand of the developed world's shifting industries. Since an overwhelming percentage of those industries have been moved to China, the country's emission level has risen continuously over the last couple of decades.
But China has not been the biggest benefactor of this "industrial shift". Its factories have supplied quality products at reasonable prices, most of which have been lapped up by the developed world. It is thus unfair to censure China for all of the GHGs it has emitted.
The developing countries should move a resolution in the UN, suggesting that per capita carbon emission should be calculated both on the basis of production and consumption. This will not oly reflect a more comprehensive scenario of global GHG emissions, but also ensure that like China they do not become the unfair targets of the industrialized world in the fight against global warming.
Third, the developed countries have to accept and honor the principle of historical liability. The principle is clearly defined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol both, and deemed an important basis of global climate negotiations. But still many developed countries try to evade their historic liability and deny the well-recognized principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities".
This is exactly why negotiators at the Copenhagen climate change conference failed to hammer out an ideal accord. Strict adherence to the principle is necessary for the developing world to win public support and avoid being coerced into signing deals that are biased in favor of the developed countries.
Emphasizing the principle doesn't automatically mean that the developing nations want to shirk their responsibilities in the fight against climate change. It means encouraging the rich countries to offer more monetary and technological support to the poor nations to fight and adapt to climate change.
The author is with the Policy Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission.
