China endorses Copenhagen climate accord

OSLO, NORWAY - Mar 09 2010 17:53

China formally signed up on Tuesday for the climate accord struck at the Copenhagen summit, the last major emerging nation to endorse a plan strongly favoured by the United States.

An official letter signed by Chinese climate negotiator Su Wei told the Bonn-based United Nations Climate Change Secretariat that it could "proceed to include China in the list" of countries supporting the deal reached at the summit in December.

Russia is the only major greenhouse gas emitter yet to say if it wants to be associated with the deal.

More than 100 nations have agreed to be "associated" with the accord.

The document holds out the prospect of climate aid of $100-billion a year from 2020 and sets a target of limiting a rise in world temperatures to below 2 Celsius, but does not commit nations to any binding steps to reach that goal.

Environmentalists say the accord was a bare-minimum outcome from a summit originally intended to agree on the shape of a broader, tougher, legally binding pact to fight climate change.

It was meant to be formally adopted by all nations at the summit, but last-minute objections by a small number of countries meant the agreement was merely 'noted'. In a compromise, it was decided nations wishing to associate themselves with it would be added to a list later on.

India also signed up to the Copenhagen Accord on Tuesday, following other major developing nations such as Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico in agreeing to have its name listed on the three-page document.

Washington has strongly backed the accord -- reached by President Barack Obama in talks with leaders of major emerging economies including China in Copenhagen.

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China, the world's top emitter ahead of the United States, had preferred since Copenhagen to stress the supremacy of the 1992 UN Climate Convention, rather than the accord. The convention stresses that rich nations must take the lead in combating climate change. -- Reuters

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