UN Climate Chief and National Negotiators Praise Developing Countries' Commitments to Fighting Climate Change

The UN climate chief and some national negotiators have praised developing countries for their significant commitments in combating climate change.

They also called on developed countries to draw encouragement and make substantial emission reduction pledges at the ongoing Copenhagen climate conference.

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has encouraged western countries to follow the example of major developing countries and make significant pledges in cutting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. He was speaking at a press conference Wednesday during the ongoing Copenhagen climate conference.

"If you look at the announcement that was made by China alone, that accounts for about 25 percent of the emission reductions that we need see in order to avoid more than the two degree temperature increase. So, very significant commitments have been made by developing countries. That puts a huge amount of, I wouldn't say pressure, encouragement on industrialized nations to increase their amount of ambition."

Last month, China voluntarily announced reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions by between 40 and 45 percent by 2020 from the level of 2005. Afterwards, India also pledged to slow its carbon emissions growth by 20 to 25 percent over the next decade based on 2005 levels. Moreover, other major developing countries, such as South Africa and Mexico, have also issued their strategy to reduce gas emissions.

In contrast, some developed countries just made much smaller reduction commitments. The United States said it will cut its gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from the 2005 levels. That amount will be reduced to just 4 percent compared with the level of 1990. But according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed nations should meet the legally binding requirement of 40 percent reductions by 2020 from the 1990 levels.

Based on these facts, Danish climate and energy minister Connie Hedegaard highly praised developing countries for their active commitments.

"I must say it is rather significant how many major economies from the developing group that have solely come forward recently with substantial commitments to action. That is very good news for this conference. So I think that it has been extremely encouraging what we've seen coming out of different developing countries within the recent few months."

Meanwhile, China has urged developed nations to honor their commitments on carbon emission reductions and financial support to developing nations.

Yu Qingtai is China's special representative on climate-change talks.

"We have already had the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol and in these legal documents, developed countries have made a series of commitments for emission reduction and technological transfer. However, if we compare the actions they've taken with their commitment, we find a large gap between the two."

Yu Qingtai notes that developing countries have asked for at least 300 billion U.S. dollars in financial support to help them deal with the impact of climate change. But developed nations' financial commitments have fallen far short of that goal, and no money has actually been provided.

The negotiator urges developed nations to take substantial steps to help developing countries cope with global warming and achieve historic progress in the Copenhagen negotiations.

Xu Weiyi CRI news.