Remarks at the Handover Ceremony for Provision of Goods for Addressing Climate Change ^Featured

Honorable Acting Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni,
Honorable Cabinet Ministers, CEOs of Ministries,
Ladies and Gentleman, Dear Friends,

It’s really a great pleasure for me to attend the ceremony today and represent Chinese government to handover the goods for addressing climate change to the Government of Tonga.

Last November, during his meeting with then Tongan Prime Minister Lord Tu’ivakano, Chinese President XI Jinping expressed that China stands ready to support Tonga in helping Tonga cope with climate change within the framework of South-South cooperation. After the meeting, leaders from both countries witnessed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Provision of Goods for Addressing Climate Change. According to the MOU, China will provide 15 million RMB (about 5 million TOP) in kind assistance to Tonga with a package of facilitates to improve its capability to response to climate change, including 25,000 energy saving bulb and tube, 500 energy saving air conditioner and 1500 solar power street light with 6-meter lamp-post.

The first two packages have already arrived in Tonga and the last one is supposed to arrive in the coming November. I believe these facilities will play an positive role in helping Tonga to save energy, reduce emission, strengthen the capacity to address climate change, and improve the working environment as well as light up for night walks.

Climate change is a global issue that requires the collaboration of the international community. As a developing country with a population of more than 1.3 billion, China is among those countries that are most severely affected by the adverse impacts of climate change. The direct loss caused by extreme weather and natural disasters like typhoon, drought is as much as 330 billion RMB. In response to the negative effect caused by climate change and make contribution to the word emission reduction, a series of measure have been taken by China to actively promote energy saving and emission reduction, vigorously develop clean energy and build a green and low-carbon economy.

According to Bloomberg, China is now the largest country for the investment of clean energy. In the single year of 2014, China invested 89.5 billion US dollars in developing clean energy like solar power and wind power with an big increase of 32% compared with 2013. With the increase of investment, China now also has the largest capacity of solar power and wind power. By 2014, the installed capacity of solar power in China is 28.05 gigawatts, which is 400 times of that for 2005, while the installed capacity of on-grid wind power is 95.81 gigawatts, which is 90 times of that for 2005, equivalent to total electricity consumption of Spain.

China is the first developing countries to formulate and implement its national program to address climate change. Last June, China has nationally determined its actions by 2030 as follows:

To achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and making best efforts to peak early;
To lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level;
To increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20%; and
To increase the forest stock volume by around 4.5 billion cubic meters on the 2005 level.
With the continuous efforts, by 2014, the carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in China is 33.8% lower than the 2005 level and the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption is 11.2%.

While shoulder its responsibility, China also actively provide support for other developing countries to improve their capacity to address climate change within its capability. Since 2011, China already invested 270 million RMB (about 44 million US dollars) to promote South-South cooperation in the sector of climate change and has trained around 2000 climate change officials and technical staff from developing countries. From this year, China will input 140 million RMB (about 22 million USD) each year twill establish the Fund for South-South Cooperation on Climate Change to provide assistance and support, within its means, to other developing countries including the small island developing countries to improve their capability to cope with climate change.

Tonga is China’s important partner in South Pacific region. The past 17 years since we established diplomatic relations has witnessed a smooth development of our bilateral relations and cooperation. Climate change is a critical and urgent issue faced by both China and Tonga and it’s also an important area for China-Tonga cooperation. China has already provided several assistance for the disaster response and relief and also offered some training opportunities for Tongan officials in this sector to strengthen. Today, we handover these packages of energy saving and low emission goods. Last April, during the visit of Tongan Government and Parliament delegation to China, Hon. Deputy Prime Minister Sovaleni has deeply exchanged ideas about our cooperation in the sector of climate change with Chinese side.

Now, China already decided to integrate the provision of wind power generation equipment into our cooperation framework in the coming years. China has the technical advantage in the development of clean energy like solar and wind power. Chinese government will encourage more Chinese renewable energy companies to invest in Tonga and continue to promote our cooperation by training, facility provision and policy exchange. I believe China and Tonga will work closer to cope with the threat of global climate change.

Malo ‘aupito！