On December 3, H.E. Mme. Ambassador Fu Ying attended luncheon held by Sir Anthony Figgis, Her Majesty's Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps and exchanged views on environmental protection and climate change with David Nussbaum, CEO of World Wild Fund-UK, Guilda Navidi-Walder, Special Advisor on Diplomatic Relations, and Philip Leonard, Project Manager.

UK experts introduced environmental governance projects of WWF in China and denoted that WWF has established a good relationship with corresponding departments and counterparts in China. The scope of cooperation has expanded from protection of species like pandas to protection and sustainable utilization of freshwater, ocean ecosystem, forests, and education on sustainable development, climate change, energy, trade of wild lives, scientific development and international policies. The projects of "Restoring the Web of Life in the Central Yangtze", "Eco-diversity Protection in Honghu Lake & River-lake re-linkages" and "Protection of Huanghai Ecological Zone at Chongming Island" have achieved great progress and accumulated precious experiences in governance of river and lake pollution. The protection of eco-environment is common course of human being and WWF and UK experts are willing to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation with China.

Fu Ying thanked WWF and UK experts for the protection of eco-diversity and environment governance in China. She denoted that the report of the 17th CPC Congress emphasized Chinese national policies of resource saving and environmental protection and advocates building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society and strengthening capability to address climate change. This reflects the responsibility of Chinese government for Chinese people and international community and provides opportunities for China to strengthen cooperation with relevant countries and international organizations.

Fu Ying also denoted that the Chinese government attach great importance to climate change and has voluntarily taken a series of energy-saving and emission-reducing measures in accordance with the strategy of sustainable development. Obvious results have been achieved, for example, the energy consumption per unit GDP and emission of pollutants in the first three quarters of 2007 have decreased, which is not easy for a fast developing industrializing country. China is attending the 13th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Bali Island, Indonesia with a responsible and constructive attitude and will make contributions to the success of this conference. Emission reduction can not be disengaged from Chinese national situation. China is undergoing the industrialization process. It still has millions of poor people who have no access to electricity, and hundreds of millions of people who are migrating from rural areas to cities. It is not realistic for China to follow practices of developed countries, and to accept compulsive mission reduction indexes. It is more practical to strengthen south-north technological cooperation in energy saving and emission reduction, promote the development and transfer of technologies, and realize mutual beneficial emission reduction with combination of economic development and international cooperation. China and UK have carried out good cooperation in energy saving and emission reduction and should further tap potentials of bilateral cooperation.

Founded in 1961, WWF is the biggest non-governmental organization in the world on environmental protection. WWF entered China to protect giant pandas and their habitats in 1980, and set up its Beijing Office in 1996.