ANALYSIS - China climate goal faces test of trust

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three little letters could spell big trouble for global climate change negotiations even after China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, announced its first firm goals to curb emissions.

MRV, climate treaty negotiators' shorthand for "measureable, reportable and verifiable", sums up environmentalists' concern now China has taken up an emissions target. How will the world know if it is telling the truth about any emissions reductions?

China stressed on Thursday that its goal of reducing "carbon intensity" by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels -- reducing the carbon dioxide released to generate each yuan of economic activity -- is a domestic policy, not to be picked over by foreigners as part of a new international pact.

Negotiators hope to agree on the basics of that pact when they meet in Copenhagen from Dec. 7.

Trust us, was the message of Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese climate policy envoy who gave a news briefing to explain the policy.

"Although this is a domestic voluntary action, it is binding," said Xie. "As we've made this commitment, well, Chinese people stick to their word."

But garnering enough international trust to fix a new legally binding climate treaty will not be easy when there is so much wider Western unease about Chinese intentions on trade, security and the environment.

Another worry is the quality of data in a country that has ingrained habits of secrecy, with officials tempted to bend statistics that can decide chances of promotion and demotion.