Rich nations must lead on greenhouse gas cuts -China

(Adds weather administration comment, paragraphs 8-10, 14-15)

BEIJING, June 8 (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for developing countries to play a role in tackling climate change, but said the onus was on industrialised countries to take the lead, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Hu made the comments in Germany, where he attended G8 meetings at which world leaders agreed to pursue substantial, but unspecified, cuts in greenhouse gases and work with the United Nations on a new deal to fight global warming by 2009.

"Considering both historical responsibility and current capability, developed countries should take the lead in reducing carbon emission and help developing countries ease and adapt to climate change," Hu told a meeting of five developing powers -- China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa.

"For developing countries, achieving economic growth and improving the lives of our people are top priorities," Xinhua quoted Hu as saying.

"At the same time, we also need to make every effort to pursue sustainable development in accordance with our national conditions."

China, the world's number two emitter after the United States, is facing growing calls to sign up to quotas for taming greenhouse gas emissions, but it has resisted specific targets.

It says sacrificing economic ambitions to international demands for cuts will dent growth in poor nations and do more damage than climate change.

The head of China's Meteorological Administration chimed in on Friday, saying that rich countries were never bound by restrictions on emissions in the process of their development.

"Particularly China, India and other developing counties, they are developing very quickly, and (developed countries) could use the climate change change card to curb their growth," Zheng Guoguang said in an online forum.

"In this, there are diplomatic, political and economic aspects," he told the forum, broadcast on Xinhua's Web site (www.xinhuanet.com.cn).

But at the same time, China, which itself is feeling the effects of rising temperatures with melting glaciers and persistent droughts, has been giving more attention to the issue, unveiling its first national plan on climate change earlier this week.

The plan vows to combat global warming through energy saving, agricultural adaptation and forest planting.

It adds that since rich countries produced most of the gases currently heating the planet, they should fund clean development rather than forcing poor countries to accept emissions limits.

Zheng, who has warned that China is likely to be hit by more typhoons, floods and drought this year because of climate change, also called for technology transfers from developed countries, since they were already outsourcing much of their polluting heavy industry to poorer nations.

"I feel that they (developed countries) have an obligation ... they also have a duty to pass their technologies for free to China and other developing countries," he said.