Beijing has been resisting pressure to adopt strict limits on greenhouse gases in advance of the Kyoto summit. China sends 10 million tonnes of sulphur into the air every year from burning coal. Cities are often blanketed in smog, partly due to the use of low-quality coal for cooking and heating.
China's air pollution problems were discussed at the China Environment Forum in Beijing last month when the former Australian prime minister, Mr Paul Keating, warned that carbon dioxide emissions from the communist country threatened to become a major cause of global warming.
Despite concern at the highest levels in Beijing, sulphur and other pollutants spouting from China's ageing factories are at the root of about half of the acid rain that fell in East Asia, he said.
"China will defend its right to use coal," said Ms Felicity Thomas, a regulatory specialist with environmental consulting firm ERM Chinas, "but they are very keen to find alternatives."
Japan is particularly worried about smog from China crossing the ocean to return to earth as acid rain, said Mr Mitsutake Okano, a senior adviser to Mitsubishi Corporation. "Our concerns on acid rain are coming from the continent, including China." Chinese leaders have adopted legislation to curb emissions but fear of unrest leads to a soft attitude to guilty enterprises. Environmentalists are also concerned about how deforestation in China could affect climate change. In the past 20 years desert land around the Gobi Desert has increased at the rate of 2,460 sq kms each year, and 27 per cent of the country's total land is in danger of desertification, according to the officially-approved China Envi- ronment News.
The European Union's Environment Commissioner, Ms Ritt Bjerregaard, is expected to advise China that a voluntary agreement to cut carbon dioxide output could help secure a deal at the climate conference. Ms Bjerregaard is meeting Chinese officials in Beijing just before the key ministerial session of the Kyoto negotiations next Tuesday and Wednesday.
"China is the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, so it is very important what kind of power plants it uses in future and how emissions reductions targets will apply to the country after Kyoto," an EU official said.
China, the United States, Russia and Japan produce almost half the world's overall CO 2 emissions, according to a survey by the Paris-based International Energy Agency. China produced about 13.6 per cent of global CO 2 emissions in 1995.
China and India, which could have the largest emissions in the next century, might be forming an alliance at the Kyoto conference to argue for a deal based on per capita emissions. According to reports from India, the two countries have been in touch over common positions.