Vows show China's climate resolve

China's latest climate pledges announced by President Xi Jinping reflected the country's firm resolve to tackle climate change and its responsibility to honor its commitments, officials said on Tuesday.

"The new commitments… are the road map for China to realize the aim of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030. They are also a complete renewal and update of the climate targets for 2030 that the country set in 2015," Jia Guide, director of the Foreign Ministry's Department of Treaty and Law, said at a news briefing in Beijing.

Xi, addressing the Climate Ambition Summit via video link on Saturday, announced that by 2030, China will lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by more than 65 percent from the 2005 level and increase its share of nonfossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25 percent.

Also by 2030, China will increase its forest stock by 6 billion cubic meters from the 2005 level, and bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts, Xi said.

Li Gao, director-general of climate change at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said at the briefing that the new pledges also showed that China has made its best efforts within its capability based on its own conditions.

Li said that as the world's largest developing country, China still faces some acute problems caused by unbalanced and inadequate development as well as a series of arduous challenges such as a developing economy, improving people's livelihoods, eradicating poverty and controlling pollution.

"Even so, we will still steadfastly push forward implementation of the commitments with full confidence and strong determination," he said.

Jia, with the Foreign Ministry, said China has a positive view of the event, which brought together global leaders for stronger action on climate change.

The specific actions and plans announced by many countries' leaders at the summit reflected the ambition for global cooperation to slow climate change, he said.

Some 70 heads of state, along with regional and city leaders, and heads of major businesses, delivered a raft of new measures, policies and plans at the virtual summit, which also celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

China has made important contributions to the Paris Agreement and has also made active efforts toward implementing it, Jia said.