China prepares first plan to tackle greenhouse gases

CHINA: China is preparing its first plan to battle climate change, a senior policy adviser said

CHINA:China is preparing its first plan to battle climate change, a senior policy adviser said. Zou Ji, a climate policy expert at the People's University of China in Beijing, said the national programme will probably set broad goals for emissions and for coping with changing weather patterns. It is likely to be released this year after at least two years of preparation and bureaucratic bargaining, he said.

The plan showed that China was sharing deepening global alarm that greenhouse gases from factories, power plants and vehicles are lifting average temperatures and will seriously, perhaps calamitously, alter the world's climate, said Mr Zou.

"All this shows that the Chinese government is paying more and more attention to this issue," he said. "When it's approved and issued, it will be China's first official, comprehensive document on climate change." Last week a UN panel of scientists warned that human activity is almost certainly behind global warming.

China is galloping to become possibly the world's third-biggest economy by 2008, and may become the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by 2009, the International Energy Agency has forecast.

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Beijing's public reaction to the panel's finding has been muted but behind the scenes it is paying attention to the warnings, said Mr Zou. The plan was awaiting approval from China's cabinet after being vetted by more than a dozen ministries and agencies, but preparations for a major Communist Party congress later this year may slow its release, he said.

The dilemma facing President Hu Jintao is how to translate concern into policies that deliver growth and jobs while cutting fossil fuel use and greenhouse gases, said Alan Dupont, an expert on climate change at the University of Sydney.

"The whole stability of the regime and, as Hu would see it, the future of his country, depends on the continuation of economic growth of 8 and 9 per cent," Mr Dupont said. "But the realisation is dawning on them that China will not get to where it wants to go unless it deals with climate change." - ( Reuters)