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Take the green way out

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-07 14:29

In the face of the worst financial crisis in many decades, global leaders have been struggling for a coordinated solution. The monetary easing they recently delivered together may be necessary but it can save global financial systems from freezing only for the moment.

To pull the global economy out of the looming downturn and put it on a more sustainable foundation, policymakers around the world need to look for answers beyond the traditional impetus for economic growth.

The High-level Conference on Climate Change that opens today in Beijing provides a good chance for global policymakers to understand the development potential of energy and other climate-related technologies.

The international community should seize the initiative to accelerate technology cooperation, especially in enhancing developing countries' adaptation to climate change.

International cooperation in technology and technology transfer has been identified as a key element for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Generally speaking, developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change than their developed counterparts.

Given the former's weak capacity for independent technological innovation and industrial countries' historical greenhouse gas emissions, the latter is obliged to provide financial support and transfer technology to developing countries on favorable terms.

Under the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries should spend at least 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) helping developing nations address climate change. But till now their spending is far below that level.

Such reluctance to facilitate transfers of environmentally sound technologies from developed countries has already hampered the fight against global warming. Worse, it has hindered the growth of a green economy in both developed and developing countries, the huge potential of which can play a key role in stoking global growth in coming decades.

Admittedly, the financial difficulties most developed countries currently face have made it harder for them to fulfill their obligation in helping developing countries to combat climate change.

But it will be short-sighted for policymakers in developed countries to retreat from international cooperation to address global warming. By taking aggressive steps to promote transfer of environmentally sound technologies, they will not only give a huge boost to sustainable growth of the developing countries but also create a powerful green growth engine for their own economies.