Cautious public praise for Obama's China visit

• Source: Global Times
• [21:21 November 15 2009]
• Comments

Yang Dongping, co-founder and vice president of Friends of Nature, the oldest Chinese environmental NGO, established in 1994

Environmental protection and climate change are key issues in Sino-US relations. It's very encouraging that Obama has begun taking a positive attitude toward these issues, rather than disregarding the interests of the whole of humanity.

I personally think that China should take on more responsibilities to curb global warming.

Though China's per capita emitted sulfur dioxide is much lower than the world average level at present, its total discharges are extremely high. My colleagues and I believe that China should step up efforts to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emis-sion. It's good for China and the world in the long term.

As high carbon-emitting countries though, China and the US are different in their energy consumption structure. China's economic development highly depends on coal, and the energy efficiency is very low.

The major problem with the US, however, rests on its lifestyle of over-consuming resources, which has set a bad example for and greatly influenced China.

Therefore, China has to change its energy utilization structure and advocate a low-carbon consuming lifestyle. At the governmental level, China needs the US to provide advanced technology for clean and high effective energy on favorable terms.

But we believe it is right that China should emphasize the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Considering China's current situation, it's reasonable to protect the country's actual interests of economic and social development.