European Commissioner on environment Stavros Dimas and Chinese Environment Minister Xie Zhenhua, who is on his first visit to theEU headquarters, made the pledge during the second China-EU ministerial-level environment dialogue.

During the dialogue, both sides spoke highly of their cooperation on environment protection, citing the examples that China and the EU have cooperated successfully on climate change, water management, air pollution and biodiversity.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, and China agreed in 2003 to work together to tackle growing environmental problems,promote sustainable development and cooperate ahead of international meetings.

The ministerial-level environment dialogue was launched in 2001by the 4th China-EU summit and the first ministerial meeting was held in Beijing in November 2003.