BASIC countries meet to discuss climate change

Officials from Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) are meeting in Beijing from Monday to Tuesday to discuss climate change, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Xie Zhenhua, vice minister of China's National Development and Reform Commission, is leading a Chinese delegation to the meeting, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily press briefing on Monday. "The meeting will focus on the prospects and major issues of the Durban climate change conference," Hong said. With the Durban climate change conference set to take place in November, Hong said the focus will be the extension of the Kyoto Protocol and the commitment of developed countries for the protocol's next period. The Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 2008 to 2012.