China adviser outlines climate tech proposal
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is promoting a plan to dramatically boost the flow of greenhouse gas-cutting technology from wealthy economies to developing countries.
The plan will be discussed during a two-day conference in Beijing from Friday, but its content has not yet been officially released.
In an interview, Zou Ji, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing involved in shaping China's plan, gave the following details. He stressed that his past work on it, with a researcher from China's official National Leading Group on Climate Change was a starting point, not a definitive plan.
Q. Who will run the proposed technology transfers?
A. "There should be a new inter-governmental body under United Nations auspices to coordinate technology transfers and handle related issues, including intellectual property protection, technology and R&D investment mechanisms and capacity-building," said Zou. "The body would also monitor performance of transfers."
Q. What role will there be for government and business?
A. "The general plan calls for public financing from developed countries, but the details will all be a matter for negotiation," Zou said.
"China wants the fund to leverage public-private partnerships, to act as a catalyst for commercial investment. For example, funds could be used for loan support, for R&D subsidies, for all kinds of investment and capacity-building purposes."
"We recognize that the bulk of relevant energy technology is in the hands of multi-nationals, so to make this plan work we have to create an environment in which they feel confident participating," he said.
Q. How will the money be raised?
A. Zou said one proposal was to set a percentage of developed countries' GDP to be devoted to the technology transfer fund and other initiatives in developing countries to combat the effects of global warming. Some Chinese officials have suggested 0.5 percent of GDP, others 0.7 or even 1.0 percent.
"But the Chinese government has not reached agreement on any numbers, I don't think. These are continuing discussions, and it may be that another means of raising revenue is adopted in the end....The GDP percentage approach is easy to calculate but may be hard to implement."
Q. What will be the pay-off in greenhouse gas reductions?
Beijing has not said officially what kinds of emissions reductions would come with expanded international help.
But the state Energy Research Institute estimated in a September paper that China's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were likely to grow to the equivalent of 3.4 billion metric tons of pure carbon a year by 2050 without more green policies.
An array of clean-energy measures, including an energy tax and a big rise in renewable and nuclear power, could lower those emissions by 35.5 percent to equal 2.2 billion tons of carbon, the study found.
The U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has estimated that China's fossil fuel consumption emitted the equal of 1.8 billion tons of carbon in 2007, compared to the United States' 1.6 billion tons. Total world emissions were 8.5 billion tons.
(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
