China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, lauded Sunday the outcome of a historic UN climate conference that ended with a nonbinding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts - but does not require it.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the international climate talks that brought more than 110 leaders together in Copenhagen produced "significant and positive" results.
The Obama administration on Sunday also defended the agreement as a "great step forward" - despite widespread disappointment among environmentalists that the pact does not include mandatory targets that would draw sanctions.
"Nobody says that this is the end of the road. The end of the road would have been the complete collapse of those talks. This is a great step forward," White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" show.
Disputes between rich and poor countries and between the world's biggest carbon polluters - China and the United States - dominated the two-week conference. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand action to cool an overheating planet.
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