Monitor | China's intransigence to block Doha climate deal next week
Cutting down metal production will in turn reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 2 per cent and will not cause any hardship
On Monday government climate negotiators from around the world will arrive in the Qatari capital Doha to spend two weeks trading accusations and recriminations amid a mood of mutual mistrust and suspicion.
We got a foretaste of what the mood will be like yesterday when Beijing's chief negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, declared that the talks should "address the different realities and needs of different countries".
This is a long-winded way of saying that Beijing will refuse to consider making any cuts at all in China's emissions of greenhouse gases.
Chinese officials have long maintained that such cuts would be unfair. First, they argue that China's emissions are much lower on a per capita basis than those of developed countries.
Second, they maintain that as a late-comer to industrialisation, China's cumulative historical emissions are relatively low.