Top officials from the European Union and China are meeting today, just a week before the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, to discuss matters and sign agreements that Europe hopes would strengthen the initiative against global warming.

At the 12th European Union-China summit in the city of Nanjing, China’s emission targets and its climate change mitigation plans will be discussed.

Officials who will be there include Fredrik Reinfeldt, president of the European Council, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission and a Chinese delegation led by Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, among others.

“There is a lot we can achieve together also in economic recovery and the reform of international financial structures,” Mr. Barroso said.

A financing agreement for an environmental governance program and a new trade project for China’s sustainable trade and investment system will be signed during the summit.

The agreement states that from 2010, about 44 million euros ($66 million) will be used to support China’s trade and investment reform process and projects that protect the environment and promote local sustainable development.

Certain negotiated texts relating to climate change will also be formally signed, including a memorandum of understanding on the second phase of a near zero emission coal project.

In a conference last October, results of Phase 1 of this project indicated readiness towards the second phase and that the third phase, construction and operation of demonstration projects, is feasible by 2012.

Several other cooperation pacts relating to industrial sectors, energy performance, quality in the construction sector, and renewal of science and technology, will be part of the agenda.

The summit will take place a day before the enforcement of the Lisbon Treaty, which further defines the structure of the E.U.

China is the union’s second largest trade partner, while China considers Europe its largest partner.

The European bloc’s relationship with China began in 1975 under the 1985 European Union-China Trade and Cooperation Agreement which became a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in 2007.

-   Alula Love M. Dela Cruz