Fund raising is another area of divergence between China and the US. Most of the developed countries' aid comes from public funds, and increasingly the capital market. The US also relies on the capital market and innovative financial tools to raise money to aid developing countries. Funds from the market may be less reliable, but they relieve the burden of governments.

In contrast, the financial sector of China and other developing countries are less developed. The developing countries will lose some of their say in climate-fund raising if the capital market and new financial tools play the leading role in raising climate funds.

More importantly, the developed countries have moved (and are still moving) their high-emission, resource-consuming and labor-intensive industries to China and other developing counties, which means developing countries suffer from pollution to provide products and services for rich countries.

In such a case who should be blamed for the pollution: the producers or the end consumers? As things stand today, the developing countries are taking the blame for the emissions and suffering from the pollution.

China cannot shoulder any responsibility beyond its abilities. And the US has been hesitant even unwilling to help the developing countries by providing them assistance through its funds and technologies. So, how should they align their approaches for the common fight against climate change?

The differences between China and the US on cooperation to combat climate change indicate the current world order, which is still dominated by the developed world with the US as its leader. China, therefore, has to strengthen cooperation with developing countries in order to press the developed countries to fulfill their assistance promise to the developing world, and abide by the "common but differentiated responsibilities".

The author is a researcher of international relations with Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The article is firstly published on thepaper.cn on Dec 1.