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Comply with framework to fight climate change - minister

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-12 10:07

POZNAN, Poland -- A Chinese minister said here on Thursday that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol should be taken as the basic legal framework for the world to cope with climate change.

China's top climate change official Xie Zhenhua attends the UN climate change conference in Poznan December 11, 2008. The Poznan talks are reviewing progress at the halfway mark of a two-year push to work out a global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the UN pact binding 37 nations to curb emissions by about 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. [Agencies]

Addressing a UN high-level meeting in the central Poland city of Poznan, Xie Zhenhua, minister and vice-director of China's National Development and Reform Commission, said the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are documents reflecting global consensus, and have provided a basic legal framework for addressing climate change.

The UNFCCC, which has 192 parties and entered into force in 1994, set an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle climate change. The Kyoto Protocol, which was reached in 1997, is linked to the UNFCCC and sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community on gas emission reductions.

"Only by sticking to the principles of the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, working toward their full, effective and sustained implementation...can we expect to reach a fair and effective agreed outcome in Copenhagen," said Xie, head of the Chinese delegation to the climate talks.

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"Any attempt to deviate from, breach or re-define the Convention, or to deny the Kyoto Protocol, or to merge the Convention process with the Kyoto Protocol process, will be detrimental, and will ultimately lead to a fruitless Copenhagen Conference," he warned.

The two-week Poznan climate talks culminated on Thursday in the high-level meeting attended by some 150 heads of state and government ministers and senior representatives.

Ministers are scheduled to discuss key elements of a shared vision on long-term cooperation action in fighting climate change, a topic still remaining in dispute.

Referring to this, Xie suggested that all concerned parties should move to turn the shared vision for long-term cooperative action into practical and concrete actions.

"In this regard, developed countries should take the lead in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, strictly fulfill their emission reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol for the first commitment period, and make further deep cut of their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25-40 percent below the 1990 level by 2020," Xie said.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the industrialized countries are bound to cut 5 percent of emissions below the 1990 levels over the five year period of 2008-2012.

Meanwhile, Xie said the developed countries should also fulfill their commitments under the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol to support developing countries with financial resources, capacity building and technology transfer.

For their part, developing countries will also take positive and effective mitigation and adaptation measures in the context of sustainable development and with the support of developed countries, he added.

Xie arrived here on late Tuesday for the high-level meeting of the Poznan climate talks, which will conclude on Friday.