MANILA, Philippines?China wants developed countries to fund efforts to address climate change in poor nations, and believes developing countries should be exempted from shelling out money, according to Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia.

This was the message relayed to the former speaker of the House of Representatives by Yu Qingtai, China's Special Representative for Climate-Change Negotiations, in response to the former's letter seeking support for his debt-for-environment proposal.

Under De Venecia's proposal, creditor states will be asked to convert part of debt-service payments they receive into equity in programs to battle climate change in debtor countries.

In his letter, Yu Qingtai said China would consider De Venecia's proposal, and also shared its view on climate change financing, which, he agreed, could make or break the forthcoming Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change.

Yu Qingtai said China believes that the financing mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the main channel for solving the issue on how to fund programs to save the environment.

Under the UN convention, developed countries are obliged to provide financial resources to developing countries to help them reduce carbon emissions.

?The developed countries should fulfill their obligations under the Convention of providing financial resources to the developing countries, and the developing countries should not be required to provide funds in any form,? Yu Quingtai said in the letter.
?The financing provided by the developed countries to developing countries should be additional, adequate and predicable, without setting any preconditions,? he added.

De Venecia had told the Chinese envoy that the industrialized powers' support for developing countries in reducing their carbon emissions would be a vital issue in the forthcoming climate conference.

?In my view, the most difficult aspect of the Copenhagen negotiations is that the newly industrializing countries (NICs) are unwilling to accept internationally binding emission reduction targets without financial or technical compensation to cover the economic costs of achieving these targets?since the NICs have historically generated much lower per capita emissions than the industrialized countries, and will continue to do so over the foreseeable future,? he said in a statement.