The Guardian reports that British climate secretary Ed Miliband believes that China is willing to negotiate on the issue of emissions targets given the change in the US position under Barack Obama.

China's position has been that, given the fact that they have such low per-capita emissions, the developed world should bear the burden of absolute reductions.  This was always a deal-breaker for Bush who didn't accept the equity argument of the Chinese.

Miliband--who just finished a series of meetings in Beijing--believes that Obama's flexible stance on the issue has prompted China to perhaps agree to emissions intensity targets as part of an agreement coming out of December's UN-sponsored talks in Copenhagen.

"Emissions intensity" refer to the amount of emissions needed to produce a unit of economic growth.  Under this scenario, China may agree to reduce their emissions intensity as opposed to actual number of total emissions.  This would go a long way towards giving Obama political cover at home where Republican critics of climate change negotiations keep on bringing up Chinese inaction as reason to oppose US emissions targets.