China will endeavor to alleviate and meanwhile take active measures to adapt itself to climate change, Chinese officials said in Beijing on Monday.

The country will continue to implement its policies of reducing energy consumption. It will also try to improve its energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2010 from the 2005 level, and increase its forest coverage by 20 percent, said Gao Guangsheng, an official in charge of climate change coordination under the National Development and Reform Commission.

Previous efforts by the country successfully reduced about 7.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions between 1991 and 2005, Gao told a launch meeting for the joint project of "climate change and health" between China and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Wu Xiaoqing, vice minister of the Ministry of Environment Protection, said China had adopted a series of laws and regulations on biodiversity conservation. Through 2006, China's natural reserves made up 15.2 percent of the nation's total land area, he said.

WHO expert Brent Powis told the meeting that to cope with the challenges of climate change, countries needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance their capability of adaptation to the changes.

To be more adaptive to the climate change, Gao said, China would strengthen its anti-disaster capacity, improve its early warning, forecast and response systems to keep the loss at the lowest possible level.

Vice health minister Ma Xiaowei said his ministry had begun research on the impact of climate change on relevant diseases to make preparations for future research on effective intervention.

(Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2008)