China says "development right" key in climate talks

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will treat talks on a binding global climate change pact in 2010 as a struggle over the "right to develop," a Chinese official said, signaling more contentious deal-making will follow the Copenhagen summit.

The rancorous meeting ended on Saturday with a bare-boned agreement that "noted" a broad accord struck at the last moment between the United States and the big developing countries -- China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activities and its biggest developing economy, was at the heart of the talks, and bared some its growing global assertiveness in the grinding late-night sessions.

Talks on a binding treaty are to extend throughout next year.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Yi Xianliang, indicated in comments published on Monday that his government anticipated more strife over how to mesh China's economic and emissions growth with a binding pact to cut greenhouse gas levels.

"The diplomatic and political wrangling over climate change that is opening up will be focused on the right to develop and space to develop," Yi said, in comments cited by the official People's Daily.

Yi said the negotiations that culminated in Copenhagen showed "conflicts were increasingly sharp and the crux of disputes was steadily involving each country's core interests."

UPBEAT CHINESE ASSESSMENT

Since the summit, some Chinese officials have offered an upbeat view of the results, with its chief negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, saying he was "happy" with the deal.

But China faces disputes on how its domestic vows to curb greenhouse gas growth may be brought under international oversight, and how much financial and technological help it and other big developing countries will get from wealthy economies.

"The agreement reached was better than total collapse," said Wang Ke, a climate change policy expert at Renmin University who was in Copenhagen to observe the talks.

"But China and other developing counties will feel the negotiations to come will be equally tough as we get into the details...The funding commitments from the developed countries are still vague, and technology transfer issues were barely mentioned (in the Copenhagen accord)."

The accord held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations but did not specify where this money would come from. China has said it should have the formal right to such aid, even if the most vulnerable countries are first in line to receive it.

British Environment Minister Ed Miliband, in an article published on Monday, accused China and other developing nations of blocking agreement on a potential pact, including a goal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.

Rich nations also say China's efforts to slow greenhouse gas growth, such as closing dirty power plants, should be subjected to international verification to assure wary voters and lawmakers that Beijing is keeping its word.

China has said such checks would violate its sovereignty and United Nations treaty rules saying developing countries do not shoulder the internationally binding emissions targets that developed countries must accept.

Yi said wealthy nations had failed to spell out their commitments to help poor countries cope with global warming.

"With the international financial crisis and other factors getting mixed in, the developed countries retreated from their stances and positions, and then sought to shift the blame to developing countries, especially the big emerging powers," the People's Daily quoted him as saying.

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