China wants the world to pay for its pollution

China will reduce pollution from its manufacture of exports provided the richest countries of the world pay for it.

The head of China’s department for the climate, Li Gao, said on Monday in Washington D.C. that this is part of his country’s plan to cut greenhouse gases in a fast growing economy.

The gases are said by scientists to be responsible for increasing temperatures.

He was addressing the all party Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.

He said that rich nations such as Japan and the US and should remember their long responsibility for the changing climate.

He said from 15 to 25 percent of China’s emissions of harmful gases come from factories producing items for export to developed countries and so these countries should accept accountability for them.

Li pointed out that emissions from China were 92nd in the world over the last one hundred years, and that its emissions per capita were only 20 percent of those of the US.

At the same time Vice Chairman Xie Zhenhua, China’s senior climate executive, met Todd Stern, US head climate official on Monday in Washington.

Robert Wood, spokesman for the State Department said the meeting was fruitful but it was only the beginning.

Shinsuke Sugiyama, a director general from Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the forum that it is essential to be pragmatic since the Copenhagen conference is not likely to result in a fully comprehensive agreement.

He maintains that 2009 is a crucial year for climate policy worldwide.

The US and China are thought essential to the achievement of a new treaty.

A paper from last year maintains that calculating emissions by what countries utilise gives a more precise representation of the world’s emissions.

Wealthy importers make a bigger carbon footprint, Edgar Hertwich and Glen Peters from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said.

The Kyoto Protocol, by incorporating rich countries but omitting developing countries, is inequitable and so polluting manufacturing leaves developed countries for countries with no regulations, hence carbon leakage.

Calculating trade-affected emissions may cure that, the authors suggest.

President Obama has committed to reduce US emissions by nearly 15 per cent by 2020 and is expecting problems in Congress over a plan requiring US corporations to pay for harmful pollution.

Obama has also said major developing countries must take responsibility for their increasing pollution.

The US did not ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol mainly because emission limits applied only to developed economies