China says Premier Wen Jiabao will take part in next month’s Copenhagen climate summit

China says premier will attend climate summit

BEIJING — China says Premier Wen Jiabao will take part in next month’s Copenhagen climate summit.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday that Wen would take part in the Dec. 7-18 conference, which is unlikely to produce a binding agreement. The original goal of the conference was to produce a new global climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. But in recent weeks it became clear that delegates were likely to produce at best an outline for an agreement to be considered late next year.

“We hope to reach a fair and reasonable arrangement” at Copenhagen, Qin told a news conference.