On November 27, 2009, Ambassador Yu Qingtai, Special Representative for Climate Change Negotiations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a briefing on the targets of controlling greenhouse gas emissions and the corresponding policy measures and actions released by the Chinese government on November 26. Journalists from CNN, Reuters, AFP, Russian Information Agency Novosti, The Financial Times, Nippon Television Network, Korea Central Daily News and the Associated Press of Pakistan attended the briefing.

The targets are established by the Chinese government on its own, which fully demonstrates its attention to and political will of tackling climate change, stressed Yu. China is a developing country with a large population and its general development level is not high, with per capita GDP slightly over US$3,000 and more than 40 million of poor population. Undergoing accelerating industrialization and urbanization, China faces the double challenges of developing economy, eradicating poverty and raising people’s living standards as well as protecting the environment and climate. To achieve the targets, China has to make huge efforts. Within the framework of sustainable development, we will overcome all the difficulties and try our best to control greenhouse gas emissions. We hope that the expectations and assessment on China are reasonable, objective and just.

He introduced China’s active efforts of addressing climate change and remarkable effects achieved to date. He emphasized that in terms of intensity of efforts and effects of emission reduction China is inferior to no any other country, including developed countries. He noted that the Chinese government is trustworthy in word and resolute in deed. Although faced with difficulties, especially the impact of the international financial crisis, we have neither wavered determination nor slackened action to tackle climate change. We will reduce unit GDP energy consumption by 20% in 5 years. By the first half of this year, we have reduced 13% and with continuous efforts next year expect to achieve the target of 20% which equals the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions of 1.5 billion tons. We will raise the percentage of renewable energy to primary energy mix to 10%. At present, China’s utilization of hydropower and solar energy ranks first and wind energy fourth in the world. Our wind energy utilization continues growing rapidly. We will expand afforestation to increase carbon sink. From 1980 to 2005, we cut about 5 billion tons of emissions through planting trees, strengthening forest management and reducing deforestation. There are already 26 million Chinese rural households using biogas which replaces 1,600 tons of coal and decreases 4,400 tons of emissions each year. We are confident of achieving the targets we set on our own in order to make due contributions to the cooperation of international community on handling climate change.

He reiterated China’s basic position on the international cooperation to fight climate change: first, we should insist on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and adhere to the differences between developed countries’ emission reduction obligations and developing countries’ emission reduction actions in both form and substance; second, we should maintain the development interests of developing countries and climate change should not be tackled at the cost of development; third, developed countries should translate their commitments to taking the lead in reducing emissions and providing capital and technology transfer into tangible actions in line with their historical responsibilities and existing high per capita emission. He noted that China is willing to make concerted efforts with all countries to promote positive outcome of the Copenhagen conference.