China's chief negotiator Minister Xie Zhenhua at the Fossil both. Picture by Adopt a negotiator

The recent COP17 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, ended with a decision to adopt a legally binding comprehensive agreement on climate change no later than 2015, an agreement which would become operational in 2020. The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expires by the end of 2012.

During COP17 the European Community pressured for a update on the Kyoto agreement which would reflect the emergence of developing countries as big carbon emitters. China and India have become big emitters of carbon but are not bound by the Kyoto Protocol targets as developing countries. Together with the US, who never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, they make up nearly half of the world’s CO2 emissions. "The big three" have all been reluctant to commit to legally binding agreements.

Lau Blaxekjær, PhD student at the Department of Political Science at Copenhagen University, in this week’s blog writes about the domestic and international concerns behind China’s unwillingness to make global commitments regarding climate change politics.