Latest comments posted about Facing the future in Bali on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1539-Facing-the-future-in-Bali http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1539-Facing-the-future-in-Bali First of all, I would like to argue against Dr. Lv’s view that IPCC reports are a little too political (and negatively influencing their scientific neutrality). Dr. Lv suggests that EU countries, driven by its own economic interests of being the leader of environmental technology and economy, exaggerated the negative consequences of climate change. In reality, the IPPCC report, reflecting center views of thousands of scientists world wide (including Chinese) and watered down a bit by the US and others, does not show the worst scenario of climate change. The real picture is very likely to be much worse than what is indicated in the IPCC report. I singled out this point first because how China views the urgency of the crisis will directly affect how China act. If China essentially concurs with the relaxed view about urgency of the United States, then there is no big progress. But if China thinks that climate-driven damages are likely to be sufficiently serious and detrimental to Chinese interests to warrant solving the problem sooner rather than later. China will be more proactive. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Al Gore said: “We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential.” Mr. Gore also called for the United States and China stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment. Our whole planet is in danger. Some Chinese should get rid of the ridiculous cold war mentality that the west is using climate change to contain China’s development. China should also give up the rigid notion that cutting GHGs emissions will seriously retard China’s development. In fact, combating climate change goes along well with China’s Scientific Concept of Development. China needs to bypass the polluting 20th centaury path and move straight to clean development. China needs quick transition to low carbon economy and sustainable development. The current high energy consumption pattern of development is simply not sustainable with increasing difficult of finding cheap energy. In addition, 500 million Chinese have no clean drinking water and only 1% of the 560 million city dwellers enjoy air regarded clean by EU standard. Tens and thousands of people die of pollution prematurely. More of this kind of development means more harm to our lives (very often a few bosses of mines got very rich at the cost of lives and health of many others). Therefore, combating climate change will be both a challenge and an opportunity to utilize world wide cooperation to switch to sustainable development. Time is running out, the whole human race needs to act. With one fifth of the world population, the largest GHGs emissions soon (perhaps already), and emission level surpassing the world average, China will have to act more proactively to ensure the success of the battle against climate change for the world and for ourselves. Jason Niu, Beijing Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:33:53 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5686 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5686 Although from Mike Par, the claim that China is a developing country cuts no ice, the truth is China is indeed a developing country! Since when truth becomes meaningless?When we talk about climate change, we should look at it from the angle of both history and reality. Looking back, during the industrilization period, the western countries emitted too much GHG, even today quite a few developed countries still continue to emit too much GHG and deny its responsibilty for climate change.When western countries blame developing countries, please don't forget history and reality. Chinese is inventive, but does this mean that China could develop every kind of technology without international cooperation? If so, China should be the No. 1 country now and China would be helping other countries! Though China is a developing country, still it tries its best to alleviate global warming. e.g. the target of 20% reduction of energy consumption per GDP in the 11th 5-year-plan means 1.5 billion tons of CO2 will be reduced. Maybe what I said above is also not new. However, we have to repeat because evens so still some westeners could not understand. Linda Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:28:34 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5548 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5548 When we talk about climate change, we should look at it from the angle of both history and reality. When the western countries blame China and India, please do not forget that during the industrilization period, the western countries emitted too much GHG, which is one of the main reasons that caused global warming; even today quite a few developed countries still continue to emit too much GHG! Chinese is inventive, but does this mean that China could develop every kind of technology without international cooperation? If so, China should be the No. 1 country now! Though China is a developing country, still it tries its best to alleviate global warming. e.g. the target of 20% reduction of energy consumption per GDP in the 11th 5-year-plan means 1.5 billion tons of CO2 will be reduced. Maybe what I said above is also not new. However, we have to repeat because evens so still some westeners could not understand. Linda Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:15:19 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5547 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5547 Currently China's technology is far less developed than that of western countries, and it will take China a really long time to develop its own GHG technology. Before that, international cooperation is essential in helping China reduce carbon emission. Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:49:08 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5501 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5501 Dear Dr Lu, the summary you provided was interesting only in so far as it gave a fair overview of developments to date. I speak to both politicians and industry people in mainland Europe. They feel that both India and China are not "pulling their weight" with respect to emissions. The claim that China is a "developing" country cuts no ice- emissions from urban Chinese are about the same as from urban EU people. I would also observe that Chinese people are no more (or less) inventive than others. Given this, why not develop your own GHG reduction technology? These and other questions will doubtless be raised in Bali. However, there is one thing you should understand (although it may be difficult to believe) big business in Europe and the "Green" movement in Europe have very similar views (I know I have interviewed both groups). Mike Parr PWR Consultants. Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:53:15 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5465 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1539#comment-5465