More than 7,000 events to fight climate change will be held in at least 180 countries around the world on Sunday, with the day gaining massive support largely through 350.org, tcktcktck.org and other Internet-based groups.

"I congratulate you on your work and I want to offer my personal support to the... Global Work Party," UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said in a video message posted on tcktcktck.

"I urge you to continue your inspiring work. When citizens are inspired to take action, it is easier for governments to initiate real climate change action."

Figueres recorded the video message from the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, where a week of UN talks on trying to secure a global deal on tackling climate change remained in gridlock.

The talks, which are due to end on Saturday, are aimed at laying the foundations for progress at a UN climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico, next month.

But the conference has so far been unable to heal the deep rifts between developed and developing countries that led to the failure by world leaders to broker a binding deal in Copenhagen last year.

Figueres said the Global Work Party could help push governments into making compromises in their efforts to forge a treaty.

"That is exactly what governments need to rally around urgently," she said of the grassroots campaign.

"They need to be determined to arrive at compromises that move the world towards winning the battle against climate change."

Events on Sunday will include tree planting, installation of solar panels, bicycle riding and planting of organic vegetables.

Organisers are describing it as "the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history".

As part of the event, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed will install a set of solar panels on his roof.

In China and India, more than 300 universities will join in a student clean energy competition.

In Afghanistan, students will plant hundreds of trees in a valley outside Kabul.

earlier related report
Host China plugs its climate efforts at UN talks
Tianjin, China (AFP) Oct 7, 2010 - China has seized on its hosting of UN climate talks this week to showcase its efforts to curb carbon emissions, and environmentalists say the top greenhouse gas polluter is making huge progress.

China's phenomenal economic growth has made it the biggest source of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, and those emissions will continue to soar due to its dependence on carbon-belching coal.

But amid US-led pressure to do more, China has outlined an array of measures to curb emissions that environmentalists say helps its bargaining position in United Nations negotiations on a global warming treaty.

And while China was blamed by some rich nations for the failure of a climate summit in Copenhagen last year, few are developing clean energies as aggressively, say experts at the week-long talks in the city of Tianjin.

"The Chinese are out of the starting blocks and the United States is still taking off its sweatsuit," said Jake Schmidt, global climate policy director for the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

China says in the past five years it has phased out obsolete and inefficient power plants equal to the power capacity of Britain.

It last year invested a world-leading 34.6 billion dollars in clean energy initiatives -- 30 percent of the global total and nearly double US spending.

The government has said another 738 billion dollars will be spent in the next decade.

Its ambitious renewable energy goals, backed with both incentives and mandatory targets, saw China become the leading manufacturer of wind turbines last year.

It became number three in the world in installed wind power capacity and is expected to pass the United States and Germany to take the top spot in 2010.

China also is on course to become a world leader in several other areas such as carbon capture.

On the macro-level, China has set a 2020 target to reduce carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product -- or carbon intensity -- by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels.

China has held a series of press events in Tianjin to highlight its clean energy efforts, the latest salvo in its decades-long dispute with rich nations in which each side insists the other should do more to fight global warming.

"Our efforts have been tremendous and so have the achievements," China's top climate official Xie Zhenhua told reporters in Tianjin on Monday.

If China can hit its target of improving its energy efficiency this year, it would have avoided emitting about 4.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from 2006-2010, according to the US-based Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

China's 2007 emissions were 6.5 billion tonnes.

The Tianjin event is a prelude to a UN summit starting next month in Mexico, where countries will again try to make progress on forging a global climate change treaty.

Yang Ailun, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace China, said Beijing's clean energy efforts had given it a stronger hand in the negotiations.

"China has been doing a lot at home and this has given them more leverage, especially when the United States seems to be backtracking. China is in a rather comfortable position right now," she said.

China's clean energy policies however still attract criticism because its emissions will continue to rise for years as its expanding economy gobbles up energy, 70 percent of which comes from coal.

The United States and other developing nations also remain frustrated over China's refusal to commit through the UN process to emission reduction targets.

Nevertheless, merely continuing with the measures of the past five years would reduce China's carbon intensity 37 percent by 2020, said Barbara Finamore, the NRDC's China director.

She said Beijing was expected to announce further aggressive steps for the next five years in 2011.

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