"China is making tremendous progress," said Knudsen, a specialist in climate change. "It's in China's interests and they want to be energy efficient."

In the last three decades, Asia's energy consumption has grown 230 percent and the region has gone from producing one-tenth of world greenhouse gas emissions, to a quarter, according to the Asian Development Bank.

The UN calculates global warming will cause a 30 percent decline in crop yields in central and south Asia by 2050 and decrease freshwater availability for more than a billion people.

Faced with such threats, China is switching over to renewable energy sources that are expected to provide more than 30 percent of its power needs by 2050, according to the UN.

(China Daily via agencies May 6, 2008)