China and the United States took small steps toward their shared goal of fighting climate change on Wednesday, but the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 carbon emitters remain significantly apart over a wider global plan to cut emissions. China’s chief climate official Xie Zhenhua said China should not be subject to the same rules for greenhouse gas emissions as the United States and other rich countries, signaling that Beijing will oppose any attempt to impose them at next year’s world climate conference. “We are in different development stages, we have different historical responsibilities and we have different capacities,” Xie told reporters. The U.S. special envoy Todd Stern said Washington favors every country deciding what it is capable of doing, instead of being categorized either as a developed country or a developing country in deciding how much a country should contribute to reduce climate change. Asked […]