Urgent green message

By now, the international community should have agreed to at least the broad aspects of a climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, for the success of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next month. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The European Union (EU), though, decided on Friday that the developing world needs $150 billion a year by 2020 to fight and adapt to global warming.

It is a welcome move, and it is in that context that Premier Wen Jiabao talked with European Council President Jose Manuel Barroso over the phone yesterday. Wen reiterated that financial support and technology transfer from the developed to the developing world was the key to the success of the Copenhagen talks. The key to success at the meeting is to uphold the Kyoto Protocol and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the principle of common but differentiated obligations, Wen is reported to have told Barroso.

A Foreign Ministry statement quoted Barroso as having said: "The EU hopes to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in order to ensure the success of the Copenhagen meeting."