German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China again this week, marking her second official visit to the nation. While she traveled with a delegation of business interests eager to make headway into the burgeoning Asian economy, Merkel’s trip also included some serious talk about climate change solutions.

On Monday, she urged Chinese leaders to do more to cut heat-trapping emissions. That led to the Chinese rebuttal that the West has been polluting the planet much longer than the Chinese have been. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that although his people want “blue skies, green hills, and clear water,” it’s much harder for China to cut emissions that it is for other, more developed nations like Germany. A rapidly growing economy and a much larger population have put it on the fast-track towards development, but China is wary of climate change policies that would slow its development.

Nonetheless, Wen did promise Merkel that China would work hard to slow global warming in its next five-year plan on the environment that begins in 2011 – that’s in addition to the 20 percent increase in energy efficiency, and a 10 percent cut in emissions planned by 2010.

Merkel noted that industrialized nations should make clean technology available to developing countries, and that China should also develop its own technology or adopt it from abroad. China’s expected annual economic growth of 10 percent is not sustainable with improvements in efficiencies, she noted.

Back in June, G8 leaders agreed to pursue unspecified cuts in global warming emissions and to work with the UN on a post-Kyoto Protocol plan (under Kyoto, China has no emissions gargets because it’s a developing nation). In December, world environment ministers will meet in Bali to begin planning a course of action after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Reuters
DPA News, via EarthTimes