China calls for green-technology transfer

By Cai Hong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-29 09:31

WASHINGTON: Developing nations must have access to environmentally sound technology to fight global warming, China's top climate change negotiator said yesterday.

But Su Wei said technology transfer was not even mentioned during the first preparatory session of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Washington on Monday.

He said many climate change-related technologies were unavailable at reasonable prices in developing countries and this meant these technologies could not be employed in parts of the world where they were needed the most.

Developed countries could play an active role in promoting technology transfer by providing incentives to private firms, he said.

"The preparatory session (on Monday) touched on technology, research and development, and cooperation, but made no mention of technology transfer," he said.

Xie Zhenhua, in Washington in the capacity of President Hu Jintao's climate change envoy, said developed countries needed to set greenhouse reduction targets for when the Kyoto Protocol expired in 2012.

The protocol sets binding targets for 38 industrialized countries and the European Union to reduce greenhouse emissions between 2008 and 2012.

Countries are obliged to reduce their collective emissions by at least 5 percent from a 1990 benchmark.

Leaders around the world are currently scrambling to create a post-Kyoto climate change agreement.

Xie, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said: "Mechanisms dealing with technology transfer, its adaptation and funding need to be established."

Su added that despite international commitments to promote the transfer of technology, change was happening too slowly to help developing nations in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, Xie said the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must be implemented effectively and in full.

He said the key to success in the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December was that climate change negotiations were dealt with in the spirit of a 2007 meeting in Bali.

The Washington meetings on Monday and Tuesday are the first of three preparatory sessions for the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change.

Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, said the meetings called for by US President Barack Obama were unlikely to produce any breakthroughs but would provide the opportunity for leaders to engage one another in a more informal and intimate way than is possible during the larger proceedings organized by the UN.