China said Tuesday that the rich countries should be responsible for the sluggish progress of the Copenhagen climate talks as they "move backward" on such issues like technological and financial support for the developing countries.

"The Copenhagen conference has now entered a crucial stage and made some progress, but some problems and differences still exist," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu at a regular news briefing.

"If the talks have encountered some difficulties and made slow progress, the main reason is that the developed countries have moved backward on the key issues of funding and technology," said Jiang.

Jiang said the developed countries have tried to deny the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, abandon the Kyoto Protocol and deviate from the Bali Road Map, on the other hand, they put forward various unreasonable requirements for the developing ones.

"We think this has imposed impact on the progress of the talks and on the positive results the talks could achieve," Jiang said.

The UN Climate Change Conference, which opened last Monday in Copenhagen, gathered representatives from 192 countries and aimed at mapping out a plan for combating climate change from 2012 to 2020.

Ministers arrived in Copenhagen over the weekend to work for consensus on the texts at a higher level of the two-week talks. More than 100 heads of state and government are expected to be arriving later in the week for a climate summit to endorse efforts to fight global warming.

"The key to the success of the Copenhagen talks is that the developed countries should demonstrate political sincerity, continue to commit themselves to mid-term quantitative targets of emission cut, provide the developing countries with funding and technological support," said Jiang.

(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2009)