January 15, 2010
The power game
In the face-off for sustainable power and responsible strategies, China is beating America hands down. As widely predicted, there was to be no fairytale ending from the land of Hans Christian Andersen following the climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, last month. But the world’s prospects of finding a meaningful solution to the problem of global warming were at least given an 11th-hour boost when China and the US, the planet’s two biggest polluters, made energy use and emissions’ commitments – for the very first time – just before the summit began.
While America’s change of tack was widely expected following Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency, China’s unilateral action was less predictable if equally welcome. Beijing’s promise to cut energy intensity – the amount of energy used to produce each unit of gross domestic product – by 45% and double the proportion of renewables in its energy portfolio to 15% by 2020, showed that it at last recognises that the world’s interests are also its own. Read more
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