Driven by climate concerns and a desire to modernize its economy, Beijing has begun addressing the emissions issue. Beijing calls its current stage of Green development as a "teething" stage."Regardless of whether the United States passes its own legislation, China will take positive measures because this is a requirement for our own economy to conserve resources," said Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission and China's point man in international climate talks. If China mimics the West's wasteful modernization path, he said, the environment would not be livable.In climate talks, China has argued that industrialized nations should do more to slow the pace of climate change compared with developing nations, where raising living standards is the priority. China has also noted the cumulative emissions of advanced economies since the Industrial Revolution. And some Chinese commentators have accused Western nations of using a carbon cap as a way to contain China's advancement.Nonetheless, the government has set ambitious targets for renewable energy, which is supposed to account for 15 percent of the country's fuel mix by 2020, and for tree planting, to boost forest cover to 20 percent of China's land mass by the end of next year. China plans to quadruple its nuclear power; by the end of next year, it may have 18 nuclear energy plants under construction, half of the world's total under construction.If China implements its Copenhagen commitment and the United States implements President Obama’s target, U.S. per capita emissions would still be double those of China in 2020. So, will we start seeing on solar panels, wind turbines, fuel cells, the ubiqutous "made in China" ?
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