China and European countries are leading a "green recovery," making contributions to emissions reduction while finding more opportunities for green cooperation, experts have said.

Climate change has wreaked havoc on the world, whose damage is no less severe than the raging COVID-19 pandemic, recent reports have shown.

Over 11,000 disasters have been attributed to weather, climate and water-related hazards in the past 50 years, inflicting 2 million deaths and 3.6 trillion U.S. dollars in economic losses, according to the 2020 State of Climate Services report released earlier this month.

The report by 16 international agencies and financing institutions noted that extreme weather and climate events have increased in frequency, intensity and severity as a result of climate change and hit vulnerable communities disproportionately hard.

Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet is predicted to be higher in this century than any time in the past 12,000 years, according to a study published last month in the science journal Nature.

Aerial photo taken on Aug. 17, 2020 shows a photovoltaic power station at the green industrial development park in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Hainan, northwest China's Qinghai Province. (Xinhua/Zhang Long)

Facing the stern challenge posed by climate change, China and European countries are making efforts to cut emissions and cooperate further on green development.

CHINA'S CLIMATE EFFORTS

China aims to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the General Debate of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly via video on Sept. 22.

The announcement, experts said, has been significant, since global climate efforts direly need more contributions from major nations.

If China were to achieve its goal, it would lower global warming projections by around 0.2-0.3 degrees Celsius, said the Climate Action Tracker (CAT). The figure is the biggest single reduction the Berlin-based non-profit climate science and policy institute has ever estimated.

"This is the most important announcement on global climate policy in at least the last five years," which is "welcomed by many international climate policy observers," said Niklas Hohne of NewClimate Institute, one of CAT's two partner organizations.

"A large and influential nation like China committing to positive climate change goals can only be a good thing," Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said in an interview with Xinhua.

China's recent announcement is "a significant step in the fight against the global climate change," said Finn Mortensen, executive director of State of Green, a Copenhagen-based public-private partnership that promotes clean-tech solutions concerning climate change.

"At a time when the world is in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and multilateralism is being hampered, China's efforts on 'green recovery' and statement on carbon neutrality demonstrate its willingness to be open and cooperative," said professor Lei Xianzhang, a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering.