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Chinese climate negotiators discuss 'environmental integrity'

By Dong Wei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-12-04 08:00

Cancun, Mexico - Environmental integrity is a "burning topic" at the ongoing Cancun climate change conference, a top Chinese negotiator said Thursday.

Huang Huikang, China's special representative for climate change negotiations, made this remark in a press briefing also attended by other high-level negotiators from the European Union, Japan and also several nations from the least developed countries group.

In the first days of the UN conference, Japan declared it would not extend the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding global framework limiting greenhouse gases emissions of industrialized countries, after its first commitment period ends in 2012.

Huang said "a comprehensive and balanced outcome" in Cancun needs developed countries to assume their responsibilities under the Kyoto Protocol. "It seems to us the best solution would be for the Annex One parties to make their second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol," he said.

According to Huang, the success of international negotiations on climate change also requires the US, which is not obligated to the Kyoto Protocol, to make its own "comparable commitment" under the convention.