Meanwhile, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs He Yafei had sharp words for U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern regarding news that China won't be receiving any portion of America's climate bailout funds.
The plight of future climate refugees such as the inhabitants of Tuvalu, a frightening reminder of which was delivered yesterday when people noticed several endangered Pacific island nations had been left off a prominent globe placed at the summit, has been amply covered on Chinese blogs. Writing at Sohu, the OxfamVIP blogger notes:
I've been thinking, that whether Tuvalu will be submerged isn't even up for debate. For the fate of these island nations, the difference between an increase in temperature of 1.5 or 2 degrees is only a matter of a few years. So why should they still have to come take part in this meeting and protest? It's not just a waste of their money, it's also a waste of their time.
Inside the meeting, Tuvalu is leading the entire hall in chanting slogans and everyone is extremely enthusiastic and passionate about it. Tuvalu lets us see the crisis; Tuvalu shows that now is the time for action; Tuvalu shows us bravery; Tuvalu shows us solidarity. Today, Tuvalu isn't just a solitary island nation, it's the world.
Copenhagen is just a stage, being performed on it is an ugly performance in the face of imminent disaster.
When the representative from the Pacific island of Fiji broke into tears in the middle of her speech, what she saw before her were the indifferent faces from China and America.
I don't agree with China's position; although my opinion is but a drop of water in a rainstorm, the price that China and the world will have to pay are inversely proportional to the tiny one I will.
China has pledged to reduce energy consumption per GDP unit by 40% by 2020; it sounds great, impressive, but realistically, as China's GDP will continue to grow, carbon emissions won't decrease a bit; by 2040, China's carbon emissions will have peaked. Even if per unit GDP carbon emissions do go down, total carbon emissions will increase severalfold, and trends of global warming will be all the more severe.
By 2040, the Pacific island nations will have been submerged, polar bears and penguins will have gone extinct, and China won't have benefited at all: once Shanghai goes underwater, several decades of China's development will disappear with it. Melting snow in the western plateaus will give way to massive flooding, then the rivers will go dry.
China's reasons for going to Copenhagen are exceptionally wicked. You can say that China has never been this wicked before. At the cost of its own growth, it won't hesitate to let other countries perish. This is like saying you want to build an addition onto your house, and to do so you have to knock down your neighbor's house. China says that developed countries, during your development, were heavy emitters, so now that I want to develop, I can't avoid these heavy emissions. Which is like saying that seeing as since you used to kill people and commit arson, I might as well kill people and commit arson too.
During the industrial revolution, in developed countries and worldwide, the population was far, far less than it is today. People had no idea that planting a few chimneys would heat up the planet, that it would create destruction. Now, China knows clearly the dangers of carbon emissions, yet still it would allow its own carbon emissions to increase up until 2040. Just look at the cars our military uses, they're all high-emission luxury SUVs. Yesterday I was on the freeway and beside me I saw an Audi Q7 with Shandong province police license plates. Is this public servant's butt so valuable, enough to cruise around town in a luxury car worth over RMB1.4 million, doing over 160 on a rainy night?
The cars Chinese bureau-level cadres and up drive aren't very far behind the cars that most heads of state around the world drive, and yet China shamelessly goes to Copenhagen insisting on high emissions, not to mention refusing to budge an inch in negotiations? The questions faced at Copenhagen aren't in the least about development, but about whether or not six billion people can continue to exist on this planet. Do China's development issues take priority over this? Would it really be more difficult to just get the butts of China's civil servants up off their Audi Q7 seats?
Where politicians are at their ugliest is in that they have never represented the interests of the people, all they care about is whether or not they can hold onto power for one more day. The natural disasters China has suffered these past few years surpass all those seen over the past several decades. Even with the ending in the movie 2012, the first people to get on the arks are the same kind of politicians who are only able to put on a performance at Copenhagen.
Something rotten in Denmark? Sina blogger JK_Tidus expresses a kind of skepticism about the climate talks that has been quite pervasive on Chinese blogs this week:
Recently, climate change talks have been underway in Copenhagen
This is the hottest topic in environmentalism right now
As for reducing emissions
This is a problem for the entire world!!
But what have we seen?
Each country attacking other countries just for their own interest
None of them willing to make a commitment
Those that do, how many will fulfill it?
How many countries have been able to reach the emission targets set at the last of these things?
I went on QQ to take a look around
Only to notice how many people are cursing at each other talking about the goal of reducing emissions in both China and Europe
How useful is that?
This question should absolutely not be about patriotism vs. being pro-Western
People need to look at the bigger picture
And together, think about these talks responsibly
After all, isn't this meeting being held for the future of humankind?
All countries need to take action
And not just do it out of economic interest
Or political goals or to fight one another!
If these talks don't reach a satisfactory outcome
The future on this planet will be worrisome indeed!