From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Foundation

Chinese Media Warn Against Western “Climate Hegemony"

The UN Climate Summit shows little has changed in China’s thinking on climate change.

Despite a prediction by Xinhua that Zhang would “expound China’s bold measures [in emissions reductions] after 2020,” he effectively kicked the can down the road by saying that China would announce its post-2020 actions as soon as possible. Without concrete commitments, China’s promise to reduce carbon intensity and the share of fossil fuels rings somewhat hollow. Zhang’s speech reflects the general pessimism that accompanied the news of Xi Jinping’s absence from the summit. The world will likely have to wait for China’s 13th Five Year Plan (to be adopted in 2016) to see just how serious Xi’s government is about climate change. --Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat, 24 September 2014

Chinese media criticise the West for not "assuming its responsibilities" on climate change, amid a major UN meeting on the issue. "It is highly advisable for those developed countries to stop pointing fingers at China and other developing countries, and start to realistically assume their due and unshakable responsibilities," says the Xinhua news agency article. In another commentary, Xinhua blames the West for "creating trouble" in order to obstruct the progress of negotiations and warns Western countries not to engage in "climate hegemony". --BBC News, 24 September 2014

Five years after over 150 heads of state cobbled up a rickety climate deal that fell through, the one-day UN Climate Summit is another attempt of rich nations to push India and China – responsible for one-third of total carbon emissions in 2013 – to accept some strong measures to check global warming. But the two Asian giants are not willing to take the bait unless the developed world anchored by the United States and the European Union offers substantial incentives to developing nations for adopting a cleaner growth trajectory, cutting down on emissions. This [UN summit] will achieve little as India and China do not expect Obama to deliver generous green currency that would motivate emerging economies to revise their country-centric stands. --Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, 23 September 2014

President Obama, emboldened by his use of executive powers to fight climate change at home, challenged China on Tuesday to make the same effort to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions and join a worldwide campaign to curb global warming. Declaring that the United States and China — the world’s two largest economies and largest polluters — bear a “special responsibility to lead,” Mr. Obama said, “That’s what big nations have to do.” Unless Beijing and Washington can resolve their differences, climate experts said, few other countries will agree to the treaty and it will most likely founder. --Mark Landler and Coral Davenport, The New York Times, 23 September 2014

US President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech on climate change at the United Nations General Assembly later on Tuesday is unlikely to change the opposition of developing nations against his green agenda, the Global Warming Policy Forum director Benny Peiser told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. “Obama’s speech will be big on the usual rhetoric, but he won’t be able to change the opposition by India, China and other developing nations to Obama’s green agenda,” Peiser said, adding, “The global deadlock over a new UN climate agreement is solid and nobody is expecting that the climate summit in Paris next year will deliver a legally binding treaty.” --Daria Chernyshova, --RIA Novosti, 23 September 2014

India will play hardball at the United Nations climate summit in New York next week asking rich nations to deliver on their promise to capitalise Green Climate Fund to buy copy rights of clean technologies and have a new climate treaty on the cardinal principles enshrined in Kyoto Protocol and Rio plus 20 outcome document. Kyoto Protocol is based on the principle that only the rich nations have commitment to reduce global warming causing carbon emission while others can take voluntary action whereas Rio plus 20 speaks of right of the development countries to grow for poverty eradication. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided not to participate apparently to express India’s displeasure at the UN agreeing to rich nations to host a conference to push for a climate deal. --Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times 19 September 2014

Germany is likely to miss its 2022 climate targets and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, as the country’s use of coal continues to increase. Only last year the share of electricity generated from coal in Europe’s biggest economy hit the highest in 24 years. The country also opened more coal-fired power plants in 2013 than any other time in the past 20 years as it moves towards a target set three years ago, which aims to have all nuclear power stations shut down by 2022. But falling coal prices seem to have whetted the government’s appetite for the fossil fuel, to the point that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has recently announced it considers coal-based power plants as “indispensable” for the foreseeable future. --Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.com, 22 September 2014