China's official in charge of climate change has called upon the international community to transfer technology on reasonable terms to help the country reduce its greenhouse gas emission.

Lu Xuedu, deputy director of the office of global environmental affairs in the Ministry of Science and Technology, made the appeal
at the 32nd China Daily CEO Roundtable on Wednesday in Beijing, where the main theme was climate change and China’s sustainable development.

China supports technology research related to climate change and has launched carbon capture and storage technology studies, said Lu.
“But only through international cooperation can climate be effectively protected. China will continue to cooperate with the world community to combat climate change.”

Lu said that for China, climate change is both an opportunity and a challenge, but more of the latter than the former.

Challenges include the serious effects of climate change on China and the difficulty of reducing emission because of the strong demand for energy.

The opportunities are a faster progress of technology research and development, and application of advanced technologies.

“China would have to take appropriate actions to address this issue,” Lu said.

Richard Hausmann, president and CEO of Siemens Limited China, echoed Lu, saying “the solution is technology and new
innovation and not to exclude developing countries from growth”.

He said the solution, especially for China, where 70 percent of the energy comes from coal, is coal gasification.

Coal gasification is the key technology for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plants. With this technology, coal can be
transformed into high-purity syngas when heated under huge pressure.

But he also pointed out that so far the efficiency rate with syngas has not been as high as with regular gas. “If this problem is solved it will be one of the key technologies for China,” Hausmann said.

By Sun Xiaohua