As developing countries are ever more threatened by climate change, China yesterday called on richer nations to accelerate resource transfers to help control the inevitable impact.  

In its latest assessment report released on Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that poor communities and developing countries are all the more open to climate change.

"I would like to appeal to developed countries to accelerate their funding for adaptation research and speed up the transfer of adaptation technology and cooperate with developing countries in working out solutions," Yang Xiongnian, a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, said yesterday.

This would enable developing nations to construct an effective shield against climate change and to encourage global sustainable development, he told the Asian Regional Workshop on Adaptation, sponsored by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Beijing.

Yang's remarks echoed a call made by UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer.

"Our current sources of funding are insufficient to cover these adaptation needs," de Boer said on Friday. "The international community must find new and innovative financing methods to allow in order to ensure that the most vulnerable communities are able to cope."

The three-day forum will aim to highlight specific needs and concerns for Asia, a continent that scientists feel will see a warming craze during the 21^st century.  

In China the trend will have a "mostly negative" impact, destroying fragile ecosystems and impacting on both social and economic growth, Yang, the deputy chief of the ministry's Department of Science, Technology and Education, said.

Crops in the plains of North and Northeast China could see massive drought in coming decades due to rising water demands and a decrease in soil moisture, according to the workshop. One report's doomsday scenario said China could see its total grain yield drop by up to 10 percent.

"The reduction is equal to the total annual grain productions of Central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces which are China's key crop-yield region," Li Yan, campaigner of Climate and Energy from Greenpeace Beijing office, warned.

China has led a massive campaign to ward off climate change, pooling off 20 billion yuan into irrigation projects since 1998 as well as creating rainwater harvesting mechanisms, Yang revealed.

The country has also tried shifted agricultural zones north and expanded its plantations of wheat and corn, ministry sources stated.

(Xinhua News Agency April 12, 2007)