Not undertaking quantitative task for reducing greenhouse gas emission does not mean China won't undertake GHG mitigation obligation, China's top economic planner Ma Kai said at a press conference in Beijing on Monday.

China should not take the traditional industrialization path with high emission and high energy consumption. It should blaze a new road of fast, efficient economic growth in concert with low resources consumption and low waste discharge, said Ma, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission.

This process itself will be part of China's contribution to the world's sustainable development and to worldwide efforts to address climate changes, he said.

Ma said climate changes have attracted increasing attention by the international community, which has reached consensus on the following facts:

-- Global warming is an indisputable fact.

-- Global warming has brought about serious results to natural ecological environment as well as to the environment for human's survival and development.

-- Apart from natural factors, global warming has been resulted from human activities, particularly the use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, which account for 65 percent of carbon dioxide emission worldwide.

-- Climatic problems have no boundaries. Global warming is a common challenge facing the human being, which needs joint efforts of international community.

Ma stressed that the Chinese government has always attached importance to climate changes and always been willing to cooperate with the international community in easing global warming.

Talking about whether a developing nation should undertake quantitative task for GHG mitigation, Ma said it is necessary to properly understand the essence of the climatic change issue.

He quoted Chinese President Hu Jintao's judgement made at a G8+5 meeting held the year before last year. Hu said climate change was a problem of environment and a problem of development at the same time.

Source: Xinhua