China urges developed countries to intensify efforts on climate change

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Wednesday urged developed countries to intensify their efforts to fulfill their commitments to developing countries on climate change, to make due contributions to climate change response and global climate governance.

Noting that developed countries are the main parties responsible for climate change and historical carbon emissions, spokesperson Wang Wenbin said it is their unshakable moral duty and international obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement to provide finance to developing countries to help with their response to climate change.

"Finance is the key to solving the climate change problem, and developed countries fulfilling financial commitments represents a major concern for developing countries," Wang said, adding that at the Copenhagen and Cancun summits developed countries pledged to jointly mobilize 100 billion U.S. dollars every year by 2020.

However, Wang said that over the past decade and more, developed countries have failed to earnestly fulfill the commitment, and the effective finance provided by these developed countries was, in reality, far below their official statistics.

Noting that China attaches great importance to climate change response, Wang said that China, as the largest developing country in the world, has stuck to a green and low-carbon development path and applied coordinated governance on pollution and carbon reduction, thus making concrete contributions to promoting global climate governance and climate change response.

He also noted China's accumulate appropriation of 1.1 billion yuan in recent years for South-South cooperation on climate change response, and offering training to nearly 1,500 officials and technical personnel in the field of climate change from 120 developing countries.

In the face of the common challenge posed by climate change, Wang said the international community should be united in seeking harmonious co-existence between man and nature, urging developed countries to show genuine sincerity, fulfilling their relevant commitments by intensifying efforts and improving quality, in order to make due contributions to climate change response and global climate governance.