China will play 'constructive role' at Cancun global warming talks

China has promised to play a 'positive, constructive' role in UN climate talks starting in Cancun, Mexico later this month amid mounting pressure on the world's top carbon emitter to demonstrate its willingness to get the stalled negotiations going.

Describing it as a 'very positive' message, China's climate envoy Dr Huang Huikang said yesterday that President Hu Jintao made the pledge in a letter to Mexican President Felipe Calderon late last month.

'China supports effort aimed at achieving substantive progress at Cancun under the Bali road map,' Huang said, referring to an international agreement three years ago which set a deadline of the end of last year for a binding deal to tackle global warming.

Huang, the foreign ministry's special representative for climate change talks, also struck a positive note on a contentious topic - transparency.

'Some people have always been making a fuss about so-called emissions transparency and even said the success of the Cancun meeting would depend on whether China and other emerging economies can make concessions on the issue,' he told a briefing. 'It is an upside-down approach.

'China and other developing nations do not think that in principle enhancing transparency will be a problem.'