China expected to play bigger role in tackling climate change

BEIJING -- China is expected to play a bigger role in countering climate change as a tone-setting ecology and environmental protection meeting highlights the implementation of a national plan to tackle climate change, an expert observed. The meeting will speed up China's green development and the building of an ecological civilization and a community with shared future for humanity, according to Zou Ji, president of Energy Foundation China, an organization dedicated to sustainable energy development. The meeting pointed out that China will implement a national plan to proactively tackle climate change and promote the development of a fair, reasonable and mutually beneficial global climate change governance system. China has made significant progress in improving efficiency in tackling climate change, especially through government institutional reform in March, which transferred climate change management functions to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Zou said. The reform is expected to facilitate air pollution control and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, upgrade China's growth model and economic structure, improve its development quality, foster new drivers of growth, and create green jobs, he said. To improve the effectiveness of tackling climate change, efforts should be made to optimally allocate available resources for environmental management, while regulations, market solutions, communication and education, and other policy tools should be employed as a whole, Zou said. Climate change oversight should also be integrated into the existing policy mechanisms, such as statistics, monitoring, supervision, and law enforcement systems, he added.