Visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Monday expressed disappointment over the Copenhagen climate summit, a day after China's premier hit back at charges Beijing sabotaged the meeting.

Miliband's comments in Beijing underlined lingering strains between the two countries over the December summit since his brother, Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband, said Beijing had "hijacked" the talks.

"We were very disappointed by the outcome of the Copenhagen conference and we all have to take responsibility to make sure that in the year ahead up to the Mexico meeting we regain lost ground," the foreign secretary told reporters.

Mexico hosts the next UN summit on climate change beginning in November.

Ed Miliband wrote in a newspaper article in December that China had vetoed attempts to give legal force to the accord reached at the UN-backed talks in the Danish capital.

He also said Beijing had blocked an agreement on reductions in global emissions -- charges that China has denied.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao again dismissed the charges on Sunday, and denied he snubbed a meeting of state leaders including US President Barack Obama at the summit, saying China was not even invited.

A controversy had erupted after reports emerged that Wen sent a low-ranking foreign ministry official to the meeting.

"Why was China not notified of the meeting? We have so far received no explanation for this and it remains a mystery to me," he told reporters at an annual press conference to close parliament.

He also said China -- the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases -- was unfairly perceived as a climate change spoiler.

"It still baffles me why some people continue to make an issue about China," he said, adding that his "conscience is clear" and the Copenhagen outcome was positive.

The British foreign secretary's visit comes with ties also strained by China's execution of a Briton for drug smuggling.

Miliband is due to hold talks on Tuesday with Chinese leaders including Wen and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi expected to focus on efforts to stop Iran's controversial nuclear drive.

earlier related report
Australia 0.7 degrees warmer over past 50 years: scientists
Sydney (AFP) March 15, 2010 - Australia's top science body said on Monday temperatures had risen about 0.7 degrees Celsius (0.44 Fahrenheit) in the last 50 years, describing the finding as "significant evidence" of climate change.

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) head Megan Clark said warming had occurred across the country and during all seasons, with the last decade the hottest on record.

"We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate," she told ABC public radio.

"If we just take our temperature, all of Australia has experienced warming over the last 50 years. We are warming in every part of the country during every season and as each decade goes by, the records are being broken.

"We are also seeing fewer cold days so we are seeing some very significant long-term trends in Australia's climate."

The joint CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report follows renewed debate over climate change after flaws were found in evidence from a key UN panel before and after December's world environmental summit in Copenhagen.

"There is a thirst for good quality climate science and our two organisations are proud to publish this," said Greg Ayers, the Bureau of Meteorology's director.

The bureau has been observing Australia's weather for 100 years, and CSIRO has been conducting atmospheric and marine research for more than 60 years.

Their "State of The Climate" report shows sea levels rising seven-10 millimetres (0.3 to 0.4 inches) a year around Australia's north and west, while rainfall is sharply higher in some regions and lower in others.

"We know two things. We know that our CO2 has never risen so quickly. We are now starting to see CO2 and methane in the atmosphere at levels that we just haven't seen for the past 800,000 years, possibly even 20 million years," Clark said.

"We also know that that rapid increase that we've been measuring was at the same time that we saw the industrial revolution so it is very likely that these two are connected."

Climate change is likely to be a major issue in elections due this year in Australia, the world's top per capita carbon polluter, after the government's flagship emissions trading laws were defeated twice by the Senate last year.