Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Friday the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" was the core and bedrock of international cooperation on climate change and must never be compromised.

In his speech, delivered at the opening session of the final summit segment of the UN climate change conference, Wen said developed countries account for 80 percent of the total global carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution over 200 years ago.

"If we all agree that carbon dioxide emissions are the direct cause for climate change, then it is all too clear who should take the primary responsibility," the Chinese premier said.

Developing countries only started industrialization a few decades ago and many of their people still live in abject poverty today, Wen said, "It is totally unjustified to ask them to undertake emission reduction targets beyond their due obligations and capabilities in disregard of historical responsibilities, per capita emissions and different levels of development."

Developed countries, which are already leading an affluent life, still maintain a level of per capita emissions that is far higher than that of developing countries, and most of their emissions are attributed to consumption, Wen said.

In comparison, emissions from developing countries were primarily survival emissions and international transfer emissions, the Chinese premier said.

"Today, 2.4 billion people in the world still rely on coal, charcoal and stalks as main fuels, and 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity," so any action on climate change must be taken within the framework of sustainable development and should by no means compromise the efforts of developing countries to get rid of poverty and backwardness, he said.

Wen urged developed countries to take the lead in making deep quantified emission cuts and provide financial and technological support to developing countries as "this is an unshirkable moral responsibility as well as a legal obligation that they must fulfill."

Developing countries should, with the financial and technological support of developed countries, do what they can to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change in light of their national conditions, Wen said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2009)