|
China to go eco-friendly: Hu
2007-10-15
China will step up efforts to protect its devastated environment and cut energy use, President Hu Jintao said Monday in a major speech outlining the country's priorities for the next five years. Hu also said China will make a greater contribution to addressing global climate change, as he opened the five-yearly Communist Party Congress. "We will increase spending on energy and environmental conservation with the focus on intensifying prevention and control of water, air and soil pollution and improving the living environment for both urban and rural residents," Hu said in a speech. "We will enhance our capacity to respond to climate change and make new contributions to protecting the global climate." China's booming economy has come at a huge cost to the environment with up to 70 percent of the nation's waterways polluted and air quality in its biggest cities among the worst in the world. China also is believed by some experts to have already passed the United States as the world's largest emitter of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Hu called the environmental effort "vital to the immediate interests of the people and the survival and development of the Chinese nation". He said the government would seek to develop a "resource-conserving and environmentally friendly society" and will "get every organisation and family to act accordingly," while offering no specific policy plans. However, China has so far resisted foreign calls to agree to mandatory greenhouse has emissions reductions, saying that as a developing nation it should be allowed some leeway on pollution in the name of economic growth.
| 
