Beijing: Defending its landmark deal with the US on climate change, China on Thursday said it will continue to work with India and other BASIC countries to push for a new agreement at next year’s UN climate conference in Paris.
“China is ready to working with vast developing countries to push ahead for the climate change. We will stay in communication and cooperation with BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries,” Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said.
He was responding to a question whether China has taken other BASIC members into confidence before reaching the agreement with US. BASIC was formed at the Climate Summit at Copenhagen in 2009 to work out a common position of the developing countries on emission reductions.
In a surprise move, China and the United States, world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, signed an agreement here on Wednesday coinciding with the visit of US President Barrack Obama setting out respective post-2020 goals to cut emissions.
Under the agreement, US intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26 per cent- 28 per cent below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28 per cent.
For its part China committed to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 per cent by 2030.
Hong said the goals announced by US and China was based national conditions in accordance with common but differentiated responsibilities.
The deal signals that China is firm in tackling the climate change with vigorous actions, he said. “China has only put forward the goals based on large amount of study and repeated argumentation.
The goals are ambitious enough that can only achieved through arduous efforts.
“China is very serious and very responsible in this regard,” he said. The agreement also signals that the international community can only improve their performance in campaign against climate change by enhancing cooperation, he said. “We will work together with all parties to push for the conclusion of new agreement on climate change 2015 as scheduled. We hope that developed countries play a leading role in this process and shoulder their responsibility earnestly,” he added. Observers said that China’s agreement would put pressure on India and other developing countries to commit emission cuts even while they were saddled with increasing the pace of social development keeping in view of large populations.(PTI)
