【明報專訊】Since the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, China and the US have accused each other of obstructing the formulation of an effective global climate agreement. Few countries were optimistic about reaching an agreement in 2010 when a UN Conference on climatic change began in Tianjin (天津) on October 5. It was the last opportunity for reaching an agreement before the Cancun Climate Summit, scheduled for November 2010.
The six-day Tianjin conference was aimed at calling for concerted global efforts to combat climate change. Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo (中國國務委員戴秉國) stressed in his opening speech countries should shoulder "common but differentiated responsibilities" to help tackle the global climate problem. He added that developed countries were expected to take the lead in making substantial efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide developing countries with financial and technological support.
It has long been debated how developing countries like China and India should help combat climate change. A report on China's new energy development says the country expects to have 20,000 vehicles driven by new energy by the end of 2010. In fact, China, which produced 5,000 such vehicles in 2009, aims at having one million such vehicles by 2015 and expects to have ten million of them in its cities by 2020.
■Keywords
climate change……氣候變化
international summit……國際高峰會
■Questions
1.What has mainly been debated since the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit closed?
2.What advantages would vehicles driven by new energy offer?
3.What are developed and developing countries' differentiated responsibilities in combating global climate change?
■Further readings
The China Daily. "Developed countries urged to act", 2010.10.06
