China, the United Kingdom (UK) and Switzerland jointly launched a project Thursday with an investment of 6.75 million US dollars, to study the impact of climate change on China and help China better handle climate change.

The project, "Adapting to Climate Change in China" (ACCC), will be implemented this year and finish in 2012, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation will provide financial support and technical assistance for the project.

Mark Lowcock, director general of UK DFID, said climate change was an urgent issue and adapting to it was one way to deal with it. All nations should share their experiences and information in the field, he said.

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Guangdong Province in China have been selected as pilot regions for the project.

The project will study and develop adaptive planning and policy regarding the impact of climate change on agriculture, water resources, grassland livestock, disasters and human health in China.

Gao Guangsheng, director of the Department of Climate Change of the NDRC, said adapting to climate change was a severe challenge to China as the country was easily subject to it because of its huge population and various climatic patterns.

The Chinese government has adhered to the principles of seeking to ease climate change while adapting to it, he said, adding the government is studying specific policies and measures to adapt to climate change by 2020.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told a United Nations climate summit on Tuesday that China would cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by "a notable margin" in the decade to 2020 from the 2005 level.

China published its National Climate Change Program in 2007, which pledged a 20 percent reduction of energy consumption per unit gross domestic product (GDP) by 2010 on the basis of 2005 figures.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2009)