Instead of imposing targets on developing countries for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction, international community should recognize their voluntarily-set targets on national level as a promise to take responsibility for climate change, a U.N. environment official said here Tuesday before flying to Bali for the UN Climate Change Convention.

Rae Kwon Chung, who heads a U.N. environment division for Asia and the Pacific, cited China, the biggest developing country and emerging economy which is under pressure from the West to cap its emissions, as an example in his interview with Xinhua.

"It is unfair to say that China has no target (on emission reduction). China has set a target, an ambitious one, voluntarily," Chung said, referring to China's pledge and vigorous efforts to pursue the goal of reducing energy consumption for per unit GDP by20 percent by the year 2010, set in its 11th five-year national development blueprint.

"Climate action, energy efficiency and emissions reduction mean the same thing. The 20 percent pledge China has made is not an economic one, it's actually a carbon emission reduction target which the developed countries are urging for," he said.

"This is a good model. And I think the world should recognize such voluntary targets set by developing countries on the national level," Chung said, adding that he would like to discuss this idea with experts at the Bali conference.

Chung said designing targets for developing countries is neither politically feasible nor technically practicable, as the developing countries' economies are far more volatile and vulnerable than those of developed countries, which made it difficult in many developing countries to project GHG emissions.

"If actual economic growth and GHG emissions unexpectedly shootup, the imposed target will in effect impose growth capping, which is detrimental to the economy of many developing countries."

A more feasible alternative solution, Chung said, would be reforming the existing market mechanisms to provide greater incentives in response to climate change challenge.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), derived from the Kyoto Protocol, is the only such international market mechanism available that engages developing countries. However, the current CDM has limitations, the official said.

"Criteria on project should be relaxed to broaden the scope of the CDM market, so that developing countries could be more greatly engaged in and gain more from the mechanism, while releasing pressure on developed countries struggling to meet emission reduction targets."

The current CDM project criteria requires that the projects must be proved to have been designed purely for combating climate change and without commercial interest motives. "It does not work out in real world," said Chung, who proposed that any projects that can achieve emissions reduction, whether commercially-driven or not, should be qualified as a CDM project.

He added that technical additionality criteria should remain strict to ensure quality of certified emission reduction (CER), the unit of carbon credit generated by CDM projects.

As CDM in its current form does not generate net global emission reductions by itself, since the CER generated by CDM is sold to developed countries, thus it constitutes simply a shifting of emissions from the North to the South, Chung said.

He proposed to introduce a CER discounting scheme, which means imposing a ratio limit on CER to be sold at the market.

If only a certain portion of the whole quantity of carbon dioxide reduced by a CDM project could be sold, the unsold portion would contribute to a net global emissions reduction, Chung explained.

Reforming and redesigning CDM rules to expand the market scope, rather than imposing any binding targets, is something negotiators need to focus on at the Bali meeting. By that developing countries can turn climate change crisis into economic opportunities while contribute to global emissions reduction, said Chung.

    Author:Shen Min

    Source:Xinhua

    2007-12-12