US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday gave a speech at the Beijing-based Tsinghua University, calling for closer cooperation between the United States and China on tackling climate change.

Speaking to an audience of about 100 students and teachers from the university, Pelosi noted the focus of her five-day China tour was to promote US-China cooperation on challenges faced by both countries, such as global warming and climate change.

"We address the challenge of climate change as a national security issue," Pelosi said, adding that it was also an economic, health and moral issue.

Pelosi also hailed China's efforts to cope with the global slowdown, strengthening energy-saving and emission-reduction measures and develop renewable energy resources.

She said the emission goals and standards China had set were higher and stricter than those set by the US government.

As a guest of Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of China's top legislature, the National People's Congress, Pelosi came to China as US President Barack Obama's administration has emphasized climate change as a new area where the two governments can broaden already wide-ranging engagement.

Citing a UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark, to be held by the end of this year, Pelosi said the United States and China needed to work closely together for the "post-Kyoto Protocol era."

A new pact on curbing greenhouse gas emissions could replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period ends in 2012.

The two countries "must understand each other, learn from each other" and take the best steps for a workable protocol, she said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2009)