China has announced a target to cut the greenhouse intensity of its economy by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, its contribution to the Copenhagen climate treaty negotiations. The target means a lowering of carbon emissions per unit of GDP only – not making absolute cuts to emissions nor cutting emissions by a set amount below business-as-usual levels.

While China is staking out its position for the UN’s Copenhagen climate talks, the target is at this stage voluntary and not yet one which Beijing has said it will commit to in binding global treaty. The government also announced that Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the conference in person next month.

The announcements follow similar declarations by the United States on Wednesday and mean the world’s two largest emitters, and the key players vital for any comprehensive global climate agreement now have outlined their positions for the treaty deadline talks. UN climate convention chief Yvo de Boer said the moves by China and the US may “unlock two of the last doors to a comprehensive agreement”.

However, while China and other developing countries have never been expected to set targets for absolute emission cuts, analysis of China’s carbon footprint suggests that the target is not particularly ambitious. The economy is already on track to meet the goal and may be half way by next year, given the impact of a five-year renewable energy plan up to 2010.

Given China’s rapid rate of industrial expansion, the intensity-based target equates with a probable increase in absolute levels of emissions of 40 per cent by 2020, and reduction in business as usual emissions of zero to 12 per cent, British climate action group Sandbag estimates. A Chinese official has since clarified that the target only refers to energy and industrial emissions, not removals of carbon from forestry and other land use activity. This sector offers a further positive contribution to China’s emission position given ongoing efforts to reforest cleared land.

Ten days before the start of the Copenhagen conference, all major developing country emitters have outlined some form of carbon target and all developed countries have the reduction targets on the table. This increases the chances of at least a comprehensive political agreement emerging from the treaty deadline talks.

But this outcome is far from guaranteed. Many developed nations’ targets fall well short of what scientists say is the minimum require do to avert dangerous global warming. On top of that, China and the US have offered relatively weak targets.

Reuters, Bloomberg, Guardian 26/11/09

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