ABSTRACT
All human societies depend on the earth's ecological systems for survival and development. To maintain ecological sustainability, the human environmental impact must stabilize at a level that is within the ecological systems' natural limits. Economic growth rate is almost always higher than the reduction rate of impact intensity, so that the global consumption of most natural resources and the generation of most pollutants keep growing exponentially. Given China's population share in 2000, China is entitled to 21 percent of the global emissions budget, or 420 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the twenty-first century. To meet China's climate stabilization obligations, China's economic growth rate is required to fall sharply from 7.8 percent in 2012 to 1.5 percent in 2014. In particular, climate change, caused by greenhouse gases emitted by human consumption of fossil fuels, is now threatening the survival of human civilization. Climate stabilization at a reasonable level is a global common good that cannot be accomplished without serious.
