Earth Equity News

Prominent Advisor Breaks with Chinese Government over Mandatory Caps. By Chris Buckley, Reuters, September 8, 2008. "China should bind itself to international goals to slash greenhouse [gases, said Hu Angang, a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and] one of [China's] most prominent policy advisers... in a striking break with Beijing's official stance... 'It's in China's own interest to accept greenhouse gas emissions goals, not just in the international interest,' Hu [said] in an interview on Sunday. 'China is a developing country, but it's a very special one, with the biggest population, high energy use and sooner or later, if not now, the biggest total greenhouse gas emissions. So this is a common battlefront we must join.' Hu's arguments are likely to stoke debate about China's stance in accelerating negotiations to forge a global climate pact to build on the Kyoto Protocol... Hu acknowledged that backing caps was a minority view in China. But the professor, who has helped shape environmental and social policy, said his stance would gain support as the damage from global warming and benefits of binding cuts become clearer. 'I've always started out in the minority but ended up as the mainstream,' he said."