China Environmental Law

In our continuing effort to provide you with every little shred of information released about the recent visit of US climate negotiator Todd Stern to Beijing, here is a portion of the transcript of Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang’s Regular Press Conference on June 9, 2009 which touches on the topic.

Q: The US climate change envoy is in Beijing for a visit. Whom did he meet with and what has been discussed?

A: The US climate change envoy Todd Stern is visiting China from June 8 to 9. Yesterday, Vice Premier Li Keqiang met with him and relevant information has been released for your reference.

Besides, Vice-Director Xie Zhenhua of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) had talks with the delegation. They exchanged information on the latest developments in tackling climate change respectively. They also discussed ways to enhance policy exchanges and pragmatic cooperation in climate change, energy and environment within the Strategic And Economic Dialogue framework as well as the preparation for the summit of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate.

The two sides believed that strengthened dialogue and pragmatic cooperation between China and the US in climate change will benefit bilateral relations as well as international cooperation and actions in this regard. They agreed to enhance China-US partnership on clean energy and climate change based on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. The two sides also agreed to work for results out of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and carry out pragmatic cooperation in fields set by the China-US 10-year environment and energy cooperation framework. They also concurred in establishing a joint technological R&D center to promote technological cooperation and setting up a joint expert team on technological cooperation and transfer at an early date.

[We've edited both the question and answer to remove material not related to US China climate discussions.]

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Not too much new here, but the following sentence is a little curious: “They agreed to enhance China-US partnership on clean energy and climate change based on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”.”  Presumably the US side had its fingers crossed behind its back or ascribed a different definition to “common but differentiated responsibilities” than the Chinese side.

This information is a little more specific than we’d seen before: “They also concurred in establishing a joint technological R&D center to promote technological cooperation and setting up a joint expert team on technological cooperation and transfer at an early date.”  This is the first time we have seen the term “technological transfer” mentioned in connection to these negotiations.  That should be an interesting “expert team.”