China urges US to introspect before blaming others for environmental abuse

BEIJING, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Monday urged the United States for introspection before blaming others on environmental issues, saying it is the United States who "stands in a league of its own" in abusing the environment.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to queries on the U.S. Under Secretary of State Keith Krach's tweet accusing China of damaging the environment.

Lashing out at the United States, Hua said some U.S. politicians repeated their lies in order to deny China's achievements in environmental protection and in coping with climate change, smear China's international image, and cover up its own practice of damaging the environment and hindering the global environmental governance.

As the country with the largest cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on climate change, and denied its binding quantified emission reduction commitments, Hua said.

"It has refused to take action to protect our home planet, dissociated itself from the global system and arrangement of carbon emissions, seriously hindered the global process of emission reduction and green development," the spokesperson said.

She also noted that the United States has set obstacles for the global governance process of plastic waste and transferred a large amount of waste to developing countries, causing serious damages to the local and global environment.

"The U.S. side should take an honest look at itself and admit and correct its own wrongdoings, rather than playing victims and dumping responsibility," Hua said.

Citing figures in such areas as the share of non-fossil energy in China's total energy consumption, the installed capacity of renewable energy, the ratio of new energy vehicles and new green area in world's total, Hua said China has already met and exceeded its 2020 climate action target ahead of schedule.

Reiterating China's pledge to take stronger policy and measures to have its CO2 emissions peak by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, Hua said this in itself further demonstrates China's vision of building a clean and beautiful world and responsibility toward building a community with a shared future for mankind.