China slams Copenhagen critics

Copenhagen/BEIJING: China on Sunday welcomed the outcome of climate change talks in Copenhagen, the day after a deal reached to fight global warming came in for heavy criticism.

“With the efforts of all parties, the summit yielded significant and positive results,” Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was quoted as saying in a statement on the Foreign Ministry website.

The Copenhagen Accord, passed Saturday, was assembled at the last minute by a small group consisting of leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations, after it became clear the summit was in danger of failure.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday hit out at critics of the closed nature of the accord, saying Beijing had always maintained close contact and coordination with all countries during the summit. “China is a developing nation, we... firmly maintain the development rights of developing countries, and firmly maintain the unity and coordination of emerging nations,” Qin Gang said in a statement on the Ministry’s website.

First step

Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that all of the world’s polluters would quickly have to do more, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the critics would only hold up the battle against rising temperatures. Mr. Obama returned to the White House from Copenhagen and said “extremely difficult and complex negotiations” had been needed in Copenhagen. But, “we will have to build on the momentum” and get the U.S. Congress to pass mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, he added.

“It is a first step toward a new world climate order, nothing more but also nothing less,” Ms. Merkel told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Germany will host a follow-up meeting of environment ministers in Bonn in June, ahead of another summit in Mexico City next December.