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China may be "champion" in climate change fight: IEA chief economist

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-11-24 16:59

China will be the "champion" of fighting climate change if it can reach the energy consumption targets it has already set, according to the chief economist of International Energy Agency (IEA).

Speaking at the US Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York Monday evening, Fatih Birol said the targets China set for itself to achieve by 2020 would contribute more than 25 percent of what needed to be done globally to reduce carbon emissions.

Though he is not sure if China will reach the targets, he trusts it "more than many governments and members" of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Birol said he was "very hopeful" that China would reach its targets just as it had set and met targets for population growth, sustainable economic growth and bringing electricity to half of a billion people in rural areas.

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Paris-based IEA is promoting a "low-carbon energy revolution" in order to slow the global temperature rise to two-degree Celsius by 2030 from a six-degree rise that would occur if there were no cut in the use of coal and petroleum.

Birol, director of the office responsible for economic analysis of energy policy at IEA, recently founded the IEA's Energy Business Council, which draws together leaders from the world's foremost energy corporations to provide a business perspective on a broad range of energy market challenges.

Birol demonstrated that, if global oil demands kept growing and output of existing fields continued to decline, the world would need to discover and produce some 45 million barrels of oil more a day by 2030 just to meet current demand of 85 million to 86 million barrels a day.

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