Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his Indian and Brazilian counterparts vowed Thursday to cooperate on climate change, state media said, after a rift opened among developing nations in Copenhagen talks.
Wen, who is slated to attend the global climate change summit in the Danish capital, spoke by phone separately to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Xinhua news agency said.
"The three leaders all expressed a willingness to enhance coordination and cooperation to deal with climate change," the brief report said.
The phone calls came a day after the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu appeared to expose a rift within the developing-country bloc on responsibility for dealing with climate change.
Tuvalu called for discussions on a "legally binding amendment" to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that would set targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for major emerging economies such as China, starting in 2013.
The move — backed by dozens of the poorest countries most vulnerable to climate change — was blocked by China, India, Saudi Arabia and other large developing countries.
The row exposed a rare faultline in the G77 bloc of developing nations, which until now has insisted that rich countries caused global warming and so should shoulder the burden of mitigating it.
China on Thursday tried to downplay the row, insisting the developing world was unified.
"Any intention to ask developing countries to shoulder mandatory obligations is inconsistent with the consensus already reached by the international community," foreign ministry official Duan Jielong told reporters in Beijing.
"On this issue… the view of developing countries is highly unified," said Duan, the head of the ministry's treaty and law department.
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