China vows to release climate change plan

China will release a long-awaited "action plan" on climate change ahead of next week's G8 meeting in Germany as it seeks to mount a more aggressive international defence of its environmental policies.

China's rapidly growing economy and a surge in heavy industry in the past five years has catapulted it uncomfortably into the centre of the global climate change debate and Beijing wants to pre-empt criticism at the meeting.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates that China will overtake the US this year as the world's largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases, even though its economy is less than one-fifth the size of America's. China disputes the IEA calculation, and prefers to use the measure of per capita emissions, where its large population ensures its emissions are one-fifth those of the US.

The new plan is to contain promises to increase use of renewable energy and biofuels, as well as measures to capture methane gas emissions via methods such as carbon sequestration.

China will also re-emphasise its commitment to meet a target to cut the energy use per unit of GDP by 20 per cent between 2006 and 2010.

Last year it cut energy use per unit of GDP by 1.23 per cent, below the target for that year of 4 per cent.

China's plan is also expected to expound on its existing defence of its position, as a signatory to the Kyoto accord with developing country status, which does not require it to agree to binding cuts in emissions.

Beijing argues that developed countries are responsible for most of the accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and should take the lead in reducing emissions. "Climate change caused by developed countries has already made China one of its main victims," an official from the National Development and Reform commission, the economic planning agency, said yesterday.