China is ready to abandon its resistance to limits on its carbon emissions and wants to reach an international deal to fight global warming, the Guardian reported this week.

The shift in the Chinese position significantly improves the chances of an agreement being reached when world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a deal that scientists say is critical if dangerous warming is to be avoided.

While Britain and the European Union – which have a large historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions – are pushing for ambitious reduction targets at home, no global climate deal will be possible in Copenhagen without the agreement of China and the US, which together are responsible for more than 40% of the world's annual carbon emissions. According to US News, major developing countries like China are doing far more to address climate change than most Americans realize, the top climate change official at the United Nations said last month after a meeting in Washington of ministers from the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

The two-day meeting, requested by President Obama, brought together officials from 16 of the world's major economic powers—the United States, the European Union, China, and India, among others—for a special, intimate round of negotiations as they work toward signing a new climate change treaty with the rest of the world by the end of the year.