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China pessimistic about climate pact

China's top climate change envoy, Yu Qingtai, has warned that the Copenhagen negotiations toward a post-2012 climate agreement could end in disastrous failure because rich countries are failing to deliver on promises, Reuters reported.

"As far as the Copenhagen process is concerned," Yu said, "my personal assessment is unfortunately fairly pessimistic … things have moved forward in an extremely difficult way and the progress achieved is extremely limited."| In preliminary talks, he said, rich nations have not built on their promises to provide technology and financing help to poorer countries. 

China’s rising greenhouse-gas emissions — which are expected to surpass those of the United States — have prompted richer countries and experts to argue that China, too, must accept mandatory emissions caps. Talks on a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol are meant to culminate in a new agreement in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Under the Kyoto Protocol, China and other developing countries are not obligated to cap their emissions.

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