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Bilateral China-US meeting may be in the works
By Li Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-09 08:53
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China and the United States are discussing a possible bilateral meeting between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and US president Barack Obama at the sidelines of UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Tuesday.
"Premier Wen has accepted invitation from Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen to attend the Copenhagen summit, but the detailed visiting schedule is still being planned, including a bilateral meeting with US president Barack Obama," Jiang said.
But the bilateral meeting, if it occurs, will not bring out new agreements between the two countries, said Pang Zhongying, professor on American Studies with Renmin University of China.
"There have been extensive coordination on stances from the two sides before the summit, which also signed a joint declaration on climate change during president Obama's visit to China," he said.
If there is a bilateral meeting, it will be more like a gesture, showing how serious the world's largest two greenhouse gas emitters are in saving the climate, Pang added.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that a legally binding treaty on climate change will be reached in 2010.
"Our target, our goal, is to have a legally binding treaty as soon as possible in 2010," Ban said. "But before that, we must have a strong political agreement in Copenhagen.
In a separate move, a renowned Chinese think-tank yesterday proposed a middle-ground south-north cooperation mechanism that can mobilize more technology transfer and financial support from rich countries to developing countries.
Established under the principal of "common but differentiated responsibilities", the Inter-Country Joint Mitigation Plan (ICP) will incorporate technology transfer, financial flow and carbon emission reduction, said Fan Gang, a renowned economist who leads the Beijing-based Chinese Economists 50 Forum.
The mechanism allows developing countries to reach self-imposed mitigation targets with help from a partner country - an industrialized country, which is requested to provide financial resources and technologies to meet the targets.
"The ICP will help developing countries to really decouple its economic development and carbon emission," said Li Lailai, a researcher for the project said.
"With such a mechanism, we can at least start to do something to mitigate the impacts of climate change, if Copenhagen summit cannot come up with any global deal," Li said.
