Hu says China committed to fighting climate change

BEIJING (Reuters) - President Hu Jintao said on Tuesday China was committed to fighting climate change, both at home and in cooperation with the rest of the world, but stopped short of offering any new policies.

Britain, Sweden and other countries have accused China of obstructing December's Copenhagen climate summit, which ended with a non-binding accord that set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius but was scant on details.

Chinese officials have said their country would never accept outside checks of its plans to slow greenhouse gas emissions and could only make a promise of "increasing transparency."

Hu told a study meeting attended by senior politicians, including Premier Wen Jiabao, that China took the problem seriously, state television reported.

"We must fully recognize the importance, urgency and difficulty of dealing with climate change," the report paraphrased Hu as saying. "We must make it an important strategy for our socio-economic development."

The government says some areas of the country are already seeing the effects of climate change, with higher temperatures and reduced rainfall in some parts and stronger storms in others.

China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

This "carbon intensity" goal would let China's greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth.

Hu said energy saving, emission cuts and environmental awareness must be inculcated into not only every government worker but Chinese society as a whole, state television said.

"Climate change is a common, important challenge faced by countries around the world," he said. "For a long time, we have paid a great deal of importance to tackling the climate change issue on the basis of being responsible to our own people and the people of the world."

As the world's biggest emitter, China has faced growing pressure from developed countries and some poor ones to set firmer and deeper goals to curb its greenhouse gases.

China says its emissions historically have been much lower than the developed world's, and its emissions per capita are still much lower than those of wealthy societies.

"Dealing with the problem must be done on the basis of the country's economic development," Hu said.

"We must proactively participate in global cooperation to fight climate change," he said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)