Chinese Climate Negotiators Continue to Speak Out

One extraordinary success in the past few months has been Chinese climate negotiators much more effective public relations strategy. They are getting their main messages out in the press, speaking actively about China’s own programs and their expectations of other parties. This contrasts with China’s former reticence except in the context of a very stilted Ministry of Foreign Affairs press briefing. China’s Ministerial-level negotiator National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Vice Chairman Xie Zhenhua, NDRC Climate Director-General Su Wei and Climate Ambassador Yu Qingtai regularly speak with foreign and domestic press. Their growing frankness is striking, and nowhere more so than in an interview last week with Newsweek’s Melinda Liu, where Su Wei bluntly described the Hummer as a “garbage brand.”