Developed countries should take blame for carbon emissions

"When we look at the emissions of a country, we should take comprehensive, historical and holistic approach."

"We should not focus only on aggregate but also on historical and per capita emissions", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin told a media briefing here.

The climate change issue is the result of cumulative emissions of the developed countries in the course of their economic development.

The developed countries have high carbon emissions in terms of the aggregate per capita emissions and the cumulative per capita historical emissions, he said developing countries including China are in the initial stages of industrialisation.

They are facing the daunting task of eradicating poverty and improving people's livelihood, he said adding that due to the special development stage there should be reasonable growth of their emissions.

 

"Despite this as a matter of fact, developing countries including China have taken a lot of active measures to cope with the climate change issue which has been well recognised by the international community", he said.

Liu was reacting to question on a recent report by Nature Climate Change journal stating that China's carbon emissions could be nearly 20 per cent higher than previously thought.

China, the highest polluter of carbon emissions, produces about a quarter of global carbon pollution blamed for global warming.