By Wang Ke
China.org.cn staff reporter
China and Britain will join hands to promote carbon capture and fight global climate change, the UK energy secretary said today at Peking University in Beijing.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Mr. Ed Miliband said that China, as an emerging great power, has the ability not only to act but to lead, and to exert great influence and energize others around the world.
He said to China.org.cn: "Britain will share the benefits of its investment in carbon capture and storage technology with China."
To enhance technology transfer and co-operation on low-carbon projects, he will announce a ￡10 million joint venture on technology transfer between the UK's Carbon Trust and the Chinese Energy Conservation Investment Corporation. The venture, with ￡5 million of UK co-founding, will invest in innovative low-carbon technology solutions.
His trip may also help Britain to belatedly meet its Kyoto protocol promise to pass on low-carbon technology to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"We're approaching this from the mindset where we can co-operate more with China on things like carbon capture and storage," Miliband said.
While not abandoning the potential of being a leader in the field, he said Britain and China could benefit from transferring knowledge.
"Eventually we hope to see this technology across the world because coal is something that is used in many countries and the key to that is making it a clean fuel of the future," Miliband told China.org.cn.
He expected to see a swift and long term recovery from the global economic crisis. It is vital for both Britain and China that this should be a sustainable and green recovery which will provide economic growth and green manufacturing opportunities as well as prevent dangerous climate change.
Miliband saw China as a climate-fighting pioneer with its own solutions. His Beijing visit is to forge common ground with Chinese officials ahead of crucial climate change talks later this year in Copenhagen.
He said Britain hopes China will set voluntary targets to reduce the energy and carbon intensity of an economy that recently overtook the US as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
"This is my top priority. I'm coming to China because I want to see the efforts that China is making to reduce its emissions and put its economy on a more sustainable path," he said.
During his time in Beijing, Miliband also promoted a joint research project between China and the UK on ways to speed up technology transfer, involving Tsinghua University, Peking University and the University of Sussex.
