China Leads the Emissions Pack & Invests in Solar Batteries

Four nations led by China pledged earlier this week to meet an end-month deadline to submit action plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and challenged rich countries to come up with funding to help fight global warming, while Chinese car and battery maker BYD Co Ltd, 10% owned by US billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, will invest US$3.30 billion over five years to build China’s largest solar power battery plant.

Matthias Williams for Reuters World Environment News (25 January 2010):

NEW DELHI – Four nations led by China pledged on Sunday to meet an end-month deadline to submit action plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and challenged rich countries to come up with funding to help fight global warming.

Environment ministers and envoys from Brazil, South Africa, India and China met in New Delhi in a show of unity by countries whose greenhouse gas emissions are among the fastest rising in the world.

The bloc was key to brokering a political agreement at the Copenhagen talks in December and its meeting in India was designed in part to put pressure on richer nations to make good on funding commitments.

“We have sent a very powerful symbol to the world of our intentions,” the Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said at a joint press conference after seven hours of talks.

The group discussed setting up a climate fund to help nations most vulnerable to the impact of global warming, which it said would act as a wakeup call for wealthier countries to meet their pledges on financial assistance and give $10 billion in 2010.

Rich countries have pledged $30 billion in climate change funding for the 2010-12 period and set a goal of $100 billion by 2020, far less than what developing countries had wanted.

The group in New Delhi said releasing $10 billion this year would send a signal of the rich countries’ commitment. The four said they were in talks to set up an independent fund for the same purpose, but gave no timeline or figure.

“When we say we will be reinforcing technical support as well as funds to the most vulnerable countries, we are giving a slap in the face to the rich countries,” Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc said through a translator.

The non-binding accord worked out at the Copenhagen climate summit was described by many as a failure because it fell short of the conference’s original goal of a more ambitious commitment to prevent more heatwaves, droughts and crop failures.

China is the world’s top CO2 emitter, while India is number four. China was blamed by many countries at Copenhagen for obstructing a tougher deal and has refused to submit to outside scrutiny of its plans to brake greenhouse gas emissions.

China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. For India, that figure is up to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said the world needed to take immediate action to fight climate change.

But in the wake of a controversial exaggeration by the U.N. climate panel on the threat of global warming to the Himalayan glaciers [ID:nSGE60M01C], he called for an “open attitude” to climate science.

“(There is a) point of view that the climate change or climate warming issue is caused by the cyclical element of the nature itself. I think we need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research,” he said through a translator.

“We want our views to be more scientific and more consistent.”

Source: www.planetark.org

Joseph Chaney for Reuters World Environment News (25 January 2010):

HONG KONG – Chinese car and battery maker BYD Co Ltd, 10 percent owned by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, will invest 22.5 billion yuan ($3.30 billion) over five years to build China’s largest solar power battery plant, a report said on Saturday.

Shenzhen-based BYD, which aims to sell 800,000 vehicles next year, will build the plant in China’s Shaanxi province, a report in the South China Morning Post said, citing the Shaanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission website.

The plant will have capacity to produce a total of 5,000 megawatts of batteries, the report said.

In December, BYD received 15 billion yuan in credit from the Bank of China.

The company is likely to use the credit to invest in new areas, such as solar energy and new energy vehicles, Frank He, an analyst with BOCI Research in Hong Kong, said at the time.

BYD’s F3 sedan was the best-selling car in China in the first 11 months of 2009, leading other popular domestic and foreign models, such as Hyundai Motor’s new Elantra and Chery Automobile’s QQ.

BYD plans to start selling its first electric car, the e6, in the first quarter of 2010, Paul Lin, manager of the company’s marketing department said in late December.

Source: www.planetark.org