China should provide details on how it will implement its greenhouse gas limits and offer further proposals commensurate with its status as the world’s largest emitter, European leaders said yesterday.
China promised on Thursday to nearly halve the ratio of pollution to GDP over the next decade — a major voluntary step that came a day after US President Barack Obama promised Washington would lay out plans at this month’s global warming conference in Copenhagen to substantially cut its own greenhouse gas emissions.
China’s plan does not commit it to an overall reduction in emissions, which will continue to increase, though at a slower rate.
Following a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said the Europeans wanted to analyze the figures and find out precisely what measures Beijing plans to put into place and “how it will differ from their business as usual pathway in regards to emissions.”
Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, credited China with pursuing renewable energy and nuclear power as a substitute for coal-burning plants that spew carbon.
However, China’s status as a major source of increase in global emissions means requires Beijing to do more, Reinfeldt said, citing a continuing rise in global temperatures.
Scientists believe a 2°C increase in global temperatures from pre-industrial levels would lead to destructively rising seas and climate shifts that would produce droughts, floods and other severe disruptions.
The announcements by Beijing and Washington add significant weight toward achieving a global agreement, though the Copenhagen conference from next Monday to Dec. 18 is unlikely to produce a binding deal as hoped.
Climate change was among the issues raised in sometimes contentious talks at Monday’s one-day summit between China and the EU, China’s largest trading partner.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion