Ministry official calls on nations to take action on climate goals

China has called for the meaningful implementation of climate change goals ahead of the upcoming COP 27 United Nations climate change conference, rather than simply "shouting empty slogans".

Li Gao, director of the department tackling climate change at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, made the remarks at a news conference on Thursday in the lead-up to the COP 27.

With the slogan "Together for Implementation", the UN gathering will be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from Nov 6 to 18.

Li called on parties to fully and faithfully implement the principal goals of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 2015 Paris Agreement to jointly build a global climate governance system that is fair, rational and beneficial to all.

While the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is inscribed in both the convention and the agreement, the 2015 treaty also aims to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 C from preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to further limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C.

Most countries have announced their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, which are their targets for post 2020 climate actions, he said.

It's important to create these targets, but it's even more important to take concrete actions to make reaching these goals a reality, Li said.

"This is the fundamental solution to effectively cope with global climate change," he said.

COP 27 should call on parties to transform their targets into effective policies, solid actions and concrete projects, rather than creating new targets when no adequate efforts have been made to realize the previous goals, he stressed.

"We believe shouting empty slogans doesn't equal ambition. What demonstrates ambition is implementing the targets," he stressed.