Tough times ahead for Cancun team

Fraught international negotiations leave sleep at a premium for negotiators and talks do not come more fraught than ones on global climate change, especially if your side is one of the main protagonists. So, a suitcase of caffeine might be advised as China's climate change negotiators pack their bags for the trip to the Mexican city of Cancun for the next round of talks on saving the planet later this month. Su Wei , China's chief negotiator, says he managed fewer than four hours sleep a day during three weeks of intensive, and unsuccessful, talks at Copenhagen last year. Long meetings arguing over myriad technical and legal points in search of an elusive breakthrough can be tough and frustrating. Consider the chasm between rich and poor countries and it's easy to see why life is extremely difficult for the more than 2,000 negotiators from nearly 180 countries. For many, the talks have become a power struggle between the developing and the developed world. 'Climate change talks are essentially a struggle against the developed countries' attempt to deviate from basic international principles of justice and fairness and to sabotage the UN framework,' Dr Huang Huikang, the Foreign Ministry official who is co-chairman of the Chinese delegation team said. 'The fight will go on.' At the same time, countries are also under tremendous pressure to reach a long overdue settlement. Last month, China hosted a global climate negotiation in Tianjin . It was the last round of talks before countries meet in Cancun, where they are supposed to wrap up a deal. But the week-long Tianjin talks were barely enough for the negotiators to agree on the scope of the issues, let alone focus on what is to be discussed in Mexico. For the rest of the world, the talks more or less boil down to one seemingly simple issue: how to pin down the world's top two carbon polluters - the US and China. Huang said the US strategy was to push China in terms of its international obligations after Washington's embarrassing setbacks on climate legislation at home. But some Western politicians and media lay the blame for disappointing outcomes on China's alleged insincerity. With China increasingly in the spotlight, Beijing has started to treat climate negotiations as a serious diplomatic issue. Gao Feng, who works at the UN climate body, recalled his experience as head of the Chinese delegation between 2000 and 2005, when a clear shift could be sensed thanks to the growing weight placed on climate change policy at home and abroad. In 1990s China, climate change was generally believed to be something mainly concerning weather. Back then, the China Meteorological Administration oversaw the issue. After international talks on climate change intensified in the late 1990s, the Foreign Ministry began to play a central role. In the early 2000s, things changed again. Beijing unveiled its first national action plan on climate change in 2007 and set up a leading work group chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao . Su Wei became head of the new climate department under the powerful National Development and Reform Commission the following year. Analysts noted the focal point of the talks shifted from the Foreign Ministry to the NDRC after Su's reposting. 'We used to do a lot of work to arouse attention from the leadership and the public, but it took a long time to see the changes,' Gao said. According to the UN website, the Chinese delegation consists of more than 110 people, including Xie Zhenhua , deputy director of the NDRC, and Liu Zhenmin a deputy foreign minister. But negotiators and experts say only about 30 people are negotiators who constantly take part in climate negotiations, while the rest are mostly administrative staff. For talks in Bonn, Germany, in June, China dispatched 33 delegates, with eight from the NDRC, including its affiliated energy research institute, six from the Foreign Ministry and six from Tsinghua University. China now has the strongest negotiating team among developing nations with at least one expert covering each of a few dozen climate topics under the UN talks. 'China is becoming a lot more confident. It takes voluntary action on emissions reduction on its own in a bid to push other nations to follow,' said Liu Bin , a negotiator from Tsinghua. 'In vivid contrast to the past, China now proposes its own plans and formulas while before it usually said no or simply followed other nations' examples.' Gao said: 'Back in the years when I was involved in the talks, it was quite challenging because we apparently lagged behind rich nations in almost every aspect.' Both Gao and Professor Zou Ji , a Chinese negotiator until August last year, recalled missing international meetings because of budget constraints. 'When I was asked to start researching climate issues in 2000, the negotiating team was just a dozen people, and it was very difficult to find enough people who knew foreign languages and also had expertise on climate change, let alone those who knew policies and international law and had negotiation skills, as well,' Zou said. 'But now I am happy to see a lot more Chinese negotiators can do their jobs quite well.' But the lack of a specific training mechanism for future negotiators could pose a challenge in the future. 'China has an adequate talent pool for scientists and engineers, but we need more attorneys, economists and international relations experts to get involved in climate talks,' Zou said. He took 11 students with him to Tianjin to give them first-hand experience of how negotiations worked. Chinese contingent The Chinese delegation consists of more than 110 people, but negotiators only number around: 30