China: Political interests hamper climate talks

China’s senior climate change official said on Monday that with “commercial and political interests” continuing to prevail, little progress has been made so far to combat global warming.Industrialized countries are still attempting to persuade the developing world to accept specific targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the vice-director of the National Development and Reform Commission, Xie Zhenhua, said, according to a report by Xinhua news agency."Developed and developing countries are still the two major factions and the focus of disagreement remains on each country's proportion of responsibility for emission reduction, funding and technology transfer," Xie was quoted as saying.However, industrialized countries are ignoring the importance of economic development and the key principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol, he said in a report delivered to China's legislature, the National People's Congress.In his report, Xie also complained that developed countries have so far not fulfilled their climate change funding and technology transfer commitments."They have talked much, but not done much," he said.