NAIROBI: A report released this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference countered claims that developing countries like China are not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The report, entitled "Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Brazil, China and India: Scenarios and Opportunities through 2025," also finds that 70 per cent of China's unilateral emissions reductions had been financed domestically.

"Our analysis shows the actions China and Brazil are taking will result in emissions cuts to levels comparable to what the United States is projected to do under its voluntary target by 2010, also equal to nearly 40 per cent of what the EU will do by 2010," said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP), the US-based think-tank that produced the report.

Chinese officials heralded the report's findings.

"The results of this project and our continued work with CCAP to find win-win opportunities for climate policy in China will be very important in helping us move forward," said Lu Xuedu, deputy director of China's Office of Global Environmental Affairs under the Ministry of Science and Technology. "The more developed countries do, the more developing countries will follow."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also noted China's contribution to the global effort to mitigate climate change.

"Rapidly growing economies like China have been increasingly successful in decoupling economic growth from energy use, thereby reducing the emission-intensities of their economies," he told the conference on Wednesday.

More than 6,000 people, including 100 cabinet ministers, from around the world took part in the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The conference is scheduled to end today.

A top Chinese official on Wednesday reiterated China's commitment to addressing the threat posed by climate change.

Jiang Weixin, head of the Chinese delegation to the conference, said China would seek international co-operation in line with the principles and frameworks of the United Nations Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol.

Jiang, who is also vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said the country had implemented several policies aimed at reducing GHGs.

In its current five-year national blueprint, China has made controlling GHG emissions a priority. It also calls for a 20-per-cent reduction in energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) based on the 2005 level.

The current five-year plan started this year and will end in 2010.

"This is an ambitious goal that will be extremely difficult to reach," Jiang said. "Realization will not only require unremitting efforts by China, but also practical and effective international co-operation guided by the principles of (the UN) Convention, in particular financial and advanced technological support."

Source: China Daily