COPENHAGEN, Dec 17 (Reuters) - China's climate change ambassador said on Thursday China had not given up hope of reaching a strong climate agreement at Copenhagen talks, and rejected comments from other delegations that it had.
"I do not know where this rumour came from but I can assure you that the Chinese delegation came to Copenhagen with hope and have not given it up...Copenhagen is too important to fail," Yu Qingtai told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference that is now in its penultimate day. An official with a western nation involved in the talks had earlier said that China told participants it saw no possibility of achieving a detailed accord to tackle global warming.
The official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the Chinese had instead suggested issuing "a short political declaration of some sort."
"China is not interested in becoming a party to the efforts by some people to try to blame other countries for "a failure" at Copenhagen," he added.