China is committed to taking its responsibility to reach a binding climate agreement in Paris in late 2015, said a Chinese scholar in Brussels on Tuesday.
Zhang Shiqiu, Director of the Institute of Environment and Economy, Peking University of China, made the comments at the panel of "The Road to Paris: The EU, China and Global Climate Governance", the last part of the one-and-a-half day conference on China-EU relationship against the background of the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between the two parties.
She also stated that China insisted the "common but differentiated responsibility" (CBDR) principle, which didn't mean China use it as an excuse to escape its responsibility but pose a picture of the future international governance.
In fact, China did make strong political commitments itself and take actions to address the climate change nationwide, said Zhang.
She explained that in the year of 2007, China developed its national programs and policies for responding the climate change; in 2009, China promised in Copenhagen that it would reduce the carbon intensity from the 2005 level to 45 percent by 2020, which was an ambitious target at that time but were not equally recognized by the international society in the past.
Last year, China and the United States also issued a joint statement on climate change, in which China promised to achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030.
Moreover, China insisted that countries with more capacities should take more responsibilities, and it expected more commitments from developed countries, so as to transform the whole world into a green and low-carbon society, said Zhang.
She also urged that the key issue concerning the Paris climate agreement should not be limited to argument over the responsibilities, but to do something to fix the problem worldwide.
When talking about China and the EU's role, she said the two parties had a lot of common interests concerning about the climate change, and both cared about air pollution, environment conservation, etc.
Besides, both China and the EU hoped to increase the use of renewable energy and transform into a greener society. She stressed that there were a lot of experiences that China can learn from the EU.
