BEJING:UN chief Ban Ki-moon called on China today to exercise greater leadership in world efforts to curb climate change, saying a new global framework deal cannot be reached this year without Beijing.

“Without China there can be no success this year on a new global climate framework deal,” Ban said during a speech to launch a programme promoting environmentally friendly lighting in China.

“But with China there is an enormous potential for the world to seal a deal in Copenhagen.” Ban will oversee a UN summit in the Danish capital in December aimed at hammering out a new climate change pact to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.

While Ban stopped short of explicitly urging China to commit to new emissions curbs, he called on Beijing to seize the initiative.

“Strong signals from China on mitigation actions announced before Copenhagen will help push the negotiating process forward. They can also direct responsibility to other key countries to do more,” he said. China and other developing nations are opposed to any compulsory cuts in their emissions,

saying the responsibility

for solving the problem rests with the developed countries that have polluted for so long.

In his talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Ban reiterated his call for stronger leadership, but the Chinese leaders appeared non-committal.

“Your global leadership role in addressing the international financial and economic crisis ... has been widely appreciated by the international community,” Ban told Hu.

“We hope so see such a continuing global leadership role.”

“The Chinese government supports the leading role of the United Nations in pushing forward international cooperation on climate change,” the report quoted Wen as saying.

“Developed nations must earnestly help developing nations in funding, technology and energy construction. This will be

beneficial to realising sustainable global development.” Ban noted that China had made “enormous” progress on promoting the use of green energy sources such as solar and wind power and urged further efforts to limit the country’s reliance on the use of heavily polluting coal.