| China tells rich polluting nations to change lifestyle By Chris Buckley and Emma Graham-Harrison Nov 7, 2008 BEIJING, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said rich nations must abandon their "unsustainable lifestyle" to fight climate change and expand help to poor nations bearing the brunt of worsening droughts and rising sea levels. Wen told the opening of a conference on Friday the financial crisis was no reason for rich nations to delay fighting global warming. "As the global financial crisis spreads and worsens, and the world economy slows down apparently, the international community must not waver in its determination to tackle climate change," Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying. The two-day meeting is to push China's call for rich nations to fund a huge infusion of greenhouse gas-cutting technology for developing countries. But foreign officials at the meeting raised doubts about Beijing's proposal, which could stoke contention over who pays and how much. China is widely believed to be the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from industry, power plants and vehicles lifting global temperatures. But Wen threw the onus back on rich nations, with their much higher emissions per person and long history of polluting the air. "Developed countries shoulder the duty and responsibility to tackle climate change and should alter their unsustainable lifestyle," he told the meeting. Chinese officials have said wealthy nations should divert as much as 1 percent of their economic worth to paying for clean technology transfers and helping the Third World overcome damage from the rising temperatures bringing more heatwaves and droughts, more powerful storms and rising sea levels. This would mean a total $284 billion a year if members of the Organisation for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) paid up based on the size of their economies in 2007. Over 190 nations have agreed to seek a new treaty to curtail greenhouse gases from industry, vehicles and land-clearing. China wants technology aid to feature in that pact, which negotiators hope to seal in Copenhagen late next year. HOW TO PAY FOR IT? Climate officials gathered in Beijing welcomed China's growing activism on the issue but questioned its proposal, especially with an economic downturn draining coffers. "It is undeniable that the financial crisis will have an impact on the climate change negotiations," said Yvo de Boer, who heads the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. "If we go to citizens under the current circumstances ... and say 'I'm increasing your tax burden in order to pay for climate policy', that might not go down very well," he told Reuters. Denmark's Climate Change Minister, Connie Hedegaard, who is helping guide negotiations leading to Copenhagen, said other governments wanted to see what China offers in future emissions goals in return for help and big emissions cuts by rich nations. Few rich nations have lived up to vows to give a sliver of their GDPs to development aid, giving little hope for any similar approach to climate change, she said in an interview. "I think we will not be able to do this at an adequately big scale unless we also activate market forces," she said of technology transfers. But Beijing will wait to see what U.S. President-elect Barack Obama offers in greenhouse gas goals and aid before showing more of its own bargaining cards, said Hedegaard. "I definitely believe that behind the scenes things are being prepared and analysed," she said of China. "But I take it that China, as we all do, will await the new signals coming out of Washington." [Read More] |
Books Energy Keepers Energy Killers by Roy InnisThis powerful book documents the destruction planned in every community in the United States by the assault of the Energy Killers invading the world. Al Gore Wants This Book Banned! Fox News' Sean Hannity says if you read it and act on its message, "You will change the world." Change the world - Buy this Book LatestAds combat Senate climate billA conservative, free-market advocacy group, The Club for Growth, is airing radio and television ads to counter a Senate bill on climate change. The purpose of the ads is to explain to the public the extent to which the legislation could damage the economy, should it pass. "The number of jobs that will be lost, the rise in price in gasoline and electricity, the loss in GDP -- it's all astronomical. And we think it's important for people to know what's going on ..." The legislation is a "massive redistribution of wealth," and the organization is asking concerned citizens to call their senators and urge them to oppose the measure. Press SMARTGREENUSA LAUNCHES GLOBAL WARMING ATTACKEXPOSING ECO-HYSTERIA AND STOPPING GREEN GENOCIDE WASHINGtTON, DC - SmartGreenUSA is exposing ‘Eco Hysteria;’ the Eco Hysteria ignited by climatologists, politicians and government commissions that ignore good science and create laws that kill people and the economy.   Al Gore Wants This Book Banned!Energy Keepers, Energy Killers By - Roy Innis This powerful book documents the destruction planned in every community in the United States by the assault of the Energy Killers invading the world. Fox News' Sean Hannity says if you read it and act on its message, "You will change the world." Change the world - Buy this Book
gas tax  SmartGreenUSA is committed to continuing environmental progress and Smart-Green initiatives. We are dedicated to pursuing the best science available, to evaluate the costs and economic impact associated with the ideas, products and policies proposed as “green” and to be your voice to remind the government that they are elected to serve the people, not to rule over us. We fought a battle to ensure the right to be governed over 200 year ago. With your help we will continue to fight for your rights. DONATE to SmartGreenUSA Thank you for your generous support to help SmartGreenUSA protect America. "A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."
Benjamin Franklin "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." Samuel Adams Exposing the truth - Making a difference in this world while I am here. ~ Patrick Hughes ~ SmartGreenUSA |
