China is the fastest growing developing nation on earth, but with that industrial growth comes C02s; the Far eastern country has now overtaken the UK and Germany, carbon emissions wise - and is likely soon to challenge the US in the greenhouse gas department. The minister of Science and Technology, Wan Gang, has called on the international community to increase the flow of technology to help them in their fight against climate change.

“Science and technological innovation will not only discover the nature of the problem we face, but also provide possible solutions,” said Wan at the Forum on Climate Change and Science and Technology Innovation.

Developing nations like China and India have asked in the past not to have the same punitive measures regarding binding cuts in emissions as other developed nations, as they argue they produce lower Co2’s per capita per head, though that is surely only logical when China’s population is around the two billion mark. China is signed up now to the Bali ‘roadmap’, intended to be a more inclusive version of the Kyoto Protocol.

Yvo de Boer, the United Nation’s top climate change official, also present at the forum, praised China on its “ambitious” targets, adding that the country “is also driven by a number of other issues of economic nature, things like energy security, energy prices and air quality, which are also seriously concerned in this country.” China has seen a 37 per cent decline in wheat, rice and corn yields the last 50 years, thanks to “reduced rainfall, a drinking water shortage in northwest China, dramatic expansion of the desert and increases in the frequency of hot weather”.

The conference concludes this weekend.