China welcomes Brazil's emission reduction goal

Beijing: Top polluter China today welcomed Brazil's pledge to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 per cent by 2025 from 2005 baseline level as part of its contribution to a pact to fight global warming.

"China welcomes Brazil's post-2020 action plans on climate change," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

Using 2005 as the baseline level, the reduction target will be 37 per cent over the next decade and 43 per cent by 2030, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said at a United Nations sustainable development conference yesterday.

Brazil, the world's seventh biggest greenhouse gas polluter, intends to reach those goals by boosting renewable energy sources including solar, wind and biomass and continuing to reduce deforestation in the Amazon region.

"China is willing to step up communication and coordination with all parties involved, including Brazil, and in accordance with the principles of common and differentiated responsibility, equity and respective capabilities, to contribute to the success of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris at the end of this year," Hong said.

China, which overtook the US as the top polluter has pledged USD 3 billion fund to help developing countries combat climate change while it announced plans to launch a national emission trading system in 2017.

The China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund will also enhance their capacity to access the Green Climate Fund (GCF),a China-US joint presidential statement on climate change issued after Chinese President Xi Jinping's talks with his US counterpart, Barack Obama in Washington on September 26, said.

China pledged to cap carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and make its best effort to cap them earlier.