China says it achieved its goal in Copenhagen climate deal

Chinese negotiators achieved their goal at Copenhagen climate talks in ensuring financial aid for developing nations was not linked to external reviews of China's environmental plans, its top climate envoy said today.

Britain, Sweden and other countries have accused China of obstructing the climate summit, which ended last month with a non-binding accord that set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius but was scant on details.

China would never accept outside checks of its plans to slow greenhouse gas emissions and could only make a promise of "increasing transparency," Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said at a forum.

Developed nations' promise of $100 billion (£60bn) in financial aid by 2020 to help poorer countries adapt to climate change offered a good stepping stone for negotiations, he said.

"Next time, we can talk about when will they pay the money and how much each country will pay," he said.

Xie also said that China was well on track to meeting its goal of cutting energy intensity - or the amount of energy consumed to produce each dollar of national income - by 20 percent over the five years through 2010.

It had already made a 16 per cent cut as of the end of last year, he said.

"As long as we continue to make efforts, we are likely to achieve the targeted 20 percent cut this year," he said.

Xie added that China was drafting tough guidelines for reducing the carbon intensity of its growth in its next five-year plan for economic development, which will cover the 2011-2015 period.

China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 per cent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.