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China has indicated its intention to tackle global warming, but has stressed that its economic development will come ahead of measures necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Publishing its first national plan to combat climate change ahead of this week's G8 summit in Germany, China revealed its willingness to adopt energy-saving policies and make greater use of renewable energy but said it would not accede to the introduction of mandatory caps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Climate change will be a key item on the agenda at the meeting of the world's eight leading industrialised nations – which includes China.

Environmental campaigners are pressing the G8 nations to use this year's summit to agree to new measures to tackle climate change, with one report warning that more than a billion people could face water shortages and over 250 million food shortages if world leaders do not endorse tough action to limit rises in global temperatures to less than two degrees.

The report, published today by international aid agencies including the Tearfund, Oxfam and Christian Aid, warns that a failure to limit the extent of global warming will "hold the earth and its inhabitants hostage to a future of accelerated warming with catastrophic consequences".

Growing pressure to tackle global warming appears to be having some effect. US president George Bush indicated at the weekend that America was prepared to debate the issue at the G8 summit, while Australia, the only other country not to have signed the Kyoto protocol on climate change, announced that it would set carbon emissions targets in an apparent policy shift.

China, which is set to overtake the US as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, has now indicated its willingness to tackle climate change and pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by using more wind, nuclear and hydro power and making coal-fired power plants more efficient.

The growing economic power has also announced plans to expand its forests and adapt its agricultural processes in order to become greener.

However China has stressed that environmental measures will not come at the cost of its economic development.

"The first and overriding priorities of developing countries are sustainable development and poverty eradication," the Chinese climate change plan states.

At a news conference unveiling the proposals, Ma Kai, the Chinese minister who heads the country's economic planning agency, also argued that it would be unfair of developed nations to impose mandatory emission caps on China and other developing countries.

"It is neither realistic nor fair to ... overlook the different stages of development that different countries are in and to use climate change as an excuse to ask them to undertake quantified emissions reductions commitments," he said.

"This would hinder the development of developing countries and hamper their industrialisation," the minister added.