China may be the "champion of fighting against climate change" if government policies can be carried through to reach its energy efficiency goals while promoting renewable and nuclear power, said the chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Fatih Birol made the encouraging yet pressure-packed remarks at a workshop held yesterday by the Council on Foreign Relations to explain the World Energy Outlook 2009 released earlier this month by the IEA.

He said if China could reach all of its targets set for 2020, the country could reduce more than 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or 25 percent of what the world has to reduce to achieve climate stasis.