Chapter 1165 Turning Passivity into Initiative

In fact, these suggestions made by Zheng Guogang are not the first time that China has put forward them.

Similar statements have been made many times as early as during the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.

However, this is the first time that a complete emission reduction plan has been systematically put on the table for discussion in China.

And this is not in line with China's low-key style over the past decade.

Therefore, many members of delegations from other countries were unable to react immediately.

Most of them are still immersed in the passionate battle between China and the United States.

But this situation did not last long.

Soon, someone figured out what was wrong.

Emission limits based on population?

Or was it proposed by Huaxia?

Not only that, but we also need to remove the historical emissions data accumulated since the Industrial Revolution?

Well, you have a population of 13 billion, and industrialization has only happened in the last 50 years, so of course you are happy.

An additional 10% reduction in emissions sounds better than it actually is, but when the math is really done, China is still far ahead.

Then how can other countries still survive?

After all, the United States has a population of more than 3 million, so the problem is secondary.

For those European countries that industrialized early and now have small populations, such as the three Low Countries and the Nordic countries, if this method is used to calculate, wouldn’t the emission limits become negative?

You know, although the part about emission reduction in the Kyoto Protocol is not binding, it does set out a very critical content, which is the carbon emission trading system.

The next stage of plan for all countries, especially developed countries, is to combine carbon emission limits with carbon trading markets.

In this way, we only need to transfer low-end industries with relatively large emissions to developing countries, and then make back the money spent through carbon emission rights trading, so as to permanently lock the development ceiling of these third world countries.

But now that China has messed things up...

How can I still play it?

Not to mention selling carbon emission rights to others, I'm afraid the whole world will have to buy carbon emission rights from several countries such as India and Bangladesh, which have a huge population base but not very high industrial output.

But if you want to refute the Chinese...

On the one hand, other people's statements were well-reasoned and they took the initiative to promise to make a 10% concession. In addition, with the power of having just defeated the US representative, no one was willing to be the first to run into this bad luck.

On the other hand, although everyone is dirty in private, at the beginning of the 21st century, at least they still maintain a decent personality on the surface.

Protecting developing countries is, on the surface, almost as politically correct as protecting the environment.

In the past, developed countries would usually bribe representatives of a few small countries to carry out such work that would result in a fight, and they would just act as remote controllers behind the scenes.

Until the result is almost revealed, he will end up as a controversy terminator.

He said, "I want to say a few fair words," but in fact he didn't speak any justice at all.

But this time, most countries only guessed that China would confront the United States, but no one expected that the former would take this opportunity to put forward such a constructive suggestion...

Naturally, I was not prepared.

As a result, the scene froze for a moment.

The representatives looked at each other, and finally almost unanimously turned their eyes to the French and German representatives present.

There is no doubt that according to the calculation method just proposed by Hua Xia, the ones who will suffer the most will definitely be the developed small European countries.

In the discussion of climate issues since the 21st century, the EU has been taken into consideration as a whole.

But as we all know, the typical EU official combines Italian organisation, German flexibility, French humility, Belgian imagination, Dutch generosity and Irish intelligence.

In other words, nothing can be accomplished.

Therefore, in 2004, some European countries will still send representatives to attend the conference individually.

For example, Germany and France are the engines of Europe.

And considering that China has been very close to Europe in recent years, it would not make the atmosphere too tense if they made suggestions.

However, the German and French delegations simply adopted the ostrich spirit and acted as if nothing had happened.

Because they don’t actually want to refute.

As I just said, the EU acts as a whole when calculating carbon emission rights and conducting carbon trading internationally.

But if we break it down further, we still need to set a quota for each country internally.

Therefore, Germany and France can use the proposal put forward by China as a bargaining chip to strengthen their own voice within the EU framework.

As for the carbon emissions issue...

First of all, no one thinks that China’s plan can be passed as is.

Although China seems to have the upper hand now, the truly binding emissions treaty will not be formally negotiated until around 2007.

Finally, there is a voting process.

By then, no matter how embarrassing it would be, the vested interest countries would not approve a document with such outrageous content.

There will always be compromises.

Secondly, even if it is passed, the EU can expand its population by absorbing a number of Central and Eastern European countries, and then transfer the carbon emission quotas of these countries to Western Europe through the accession agreement.

There's really no rush.

Just when the host couldn't stand it anymore and was about to speak out to force an end to China's speech which had already exceeded the time limit, the Russian Federation delegation, which had been unnoticed until now, spoke to everyone's surprise.

"We believe that although the suggestions put forward by Huaxia Representative are very constructive, there are still several serious loopholes."

The host, who had just touched the microphone, sat back down instantly.

No one expected that the Russians, who seemed to be standing with China, would be the first to raise questions.

But soon, they realized that something was wrong...

"First, for some countries in the frigid zone, the cost of maintaining basic survival is higher than that of tropical and subtropical countries. Therefore, this should be taken into account and compensation should be given to these countries according to their territorial area in high latitudes or their average annual temperature."

"Secondly, when a country produces carbon dioxide, its domestic forests, grasslands and other resources will also absorb and store carbon dioxide. However, the current method of calculating carbon emissions based on satellite remote sensing cannot include this part. Therefore, this part should be subtracted before calculating net emissions..."

"..."

Obviously, this series of proposals is more about finding and filling in the gaps than raising questions.

And it's even more outrageous.

You Russians have 820 million square kilometers of forest and 300 million square kilometers of boreal land, which together are larger than the total land area of ​​Canada.

Do you still have any shame?

Fortunately, after the first one took the lead, other countries also expressed their attitudes.

For example, the American representative who had been pretending to be dead just now stood up and said that compared with land, the ocean itself and aquatic plants absorb carbon dioxide more obviously, so the area of ​​territorial waters and exclusive economic zones should also be taken into consideration.

Representatives of the GCC countries believe that considering that fossil fuels remain the basis for the survival and development of all mankind, countries that produce fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, should be considered to bear carbon emissions responsibility for all mankind and need to be exempted based on fossil fuel production or export volumes when calculating emission limits.

There are also some countries that really want to reach a consensus, and they think that it is not reasonable to count people or area, but the total amount produced by each unit of GDP should be calculated...

In short, this time, the entire conference hall almost became a vegetable market.

Even when the Chinese representative stepped down from the stage, not many people noticed.

Zheng Guogang returned to his seat and shook hands with Ding Zhongli excitedly...

After a successful counterattack, we took advantage of the situation to propose our own initiative on climate change, which was not part of the original plan.

Instead, it was proposed by the latter before departure.

On this timeline, because many things did not happen, China was not very weaker than the United States in terms of momentum.

Therefore, the superior leaders finally approved this somewhat contradictory suggestion.

This led to the sudden attack just now.

Like all other representatives, Ding Zhongli and Zheng Guogang did not expect the proposal itself to be passed from the beginning.

However, being able to speak out not only for oneself but also for the vast majority of third world countries when they have been suppressed in the past is a great attempt in itself.

Not to mention, the Chinese side successfully guided the direction of the entire discussion, completely turning passivity into initiative and making a pretty beautiful comeback.

“It actually succeeded…”

Ding Zhong tried his best to lower his voice.

But he couldn't suppress the excitement in his tone...