The United States urged China today to join in setting mid-century targets to cut carbon emissions, an appeal unlikely to make much headway as Beijing demands developed countries impose tougher goals for themselves.

The US Energy Secretary Steven Chu told students at Tsinghua University: “We are all in this together so we have to fix it together … What the US and China do in the coming decades will in a large part determine the fate of the world."

Both the US and China — the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases — agree that climate change is a major concern. But Beijing says developed countries have not set themselves stringent enough targets to cut greenhouse gas production and rejects demands on developing nations, including China, to set carbon emissions limits.

Mr Chu said it was correct that developed nations were the first to emit such dangerous gases, but said the developing world was fast catching up. If China continues on the same course without using more renewable resources the “amount of carbon China emits in the next 30 years will equal all the carbon the US has emitted in the life of the country”.

The US has set itself targets to cut emissions by 83 per cent by 2050 from 2005 levels in a landmark climate and energy Bill yet to be approved by the Senate. Developing countries refused to make similar mid-century commitments during climate change discussions on the sidelines of the G-8 meeting in Italy last week.

Both the US Energy and Commerce Secretaries are in Beijing in preparation for the December meeting in Copenhagen to work towards a new climate agreement when the existing Kyoto Protocol expires and to try to expand Chinese purchases of US clean technology.

China has won widespread praise for the speed with which it is introducing green technologies to reduce its reliance on carbon-emitting energy. The Government has indicated that it will have 10,000 megawatts of installed wind turbines by the end of this year and could attain 30,000 watts by the end of 2010 – a decade ahead of schedule.

The Commerce Secretary Gary Locke noted: “China has already adopted the most aggressive energy efficiency program in the entire world, and they are on track to exceed many of their renewable energy adoption goals.”

However, coal still accounts for 80 per cent of its electricity – the cheapest energy source in a country with the third-largest reserves in the world, after the United States and Russia.

Commerce Secretary Locke added: “It’s been said that it’s unjust to ask China and other developing nations to drastically reduce their carbon emissions, when countries like the United States have spent 150 years using coal, oil and other dirty fuels to grow their economies. That's an understandable point, but one of no concern to Mother Nature.”

He hinted that China could do more to accelerate the introduction of cleaner technology by lifting import limits – an argument that Beijing would counter with complaints that many of the high-technology items it wants are on a list of those banned from export to China. “Especially in an area like clean energy … we can’t afford to close off markets, making it difficult for Chinese or American companies to compete.”

Times recommends

• Energy-saving ideas from switched-on professor
• Rooks are as clever with tools as chimpanzees
• Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu