ECO-FRIENDLY: Teenager Zhu Xiaotong, who lives a few hours from Beijing, using a stove that burns crop waste instead of coal. -- PHOTO: AFP

Cherry tomatoes, capsicum and spring onions rise up from a little garden patch. A solar panel heater ensures that the Zhus have warm water even in winter.

Ms Zhu, the 19-year-old daughter of cabbage farmers, cooks the family meal in their sparse kitchen on a new eco-friendly stove that burns crop waste instead of coal.

'There was a lot of smoke when we burnt the coal, but now there's no smoke at all. Coal smoke used to make us cough,' she said at their home in Yanqing, a picturesque farming district.

The stove, in fact, is being held up as a symbol of what many may be surprised to hear - that China could be one of the world's saviours in combating global warming.

Former US vice-president Al Gore recently presented Chinese firm Daxu, the makers of the stove, with an Ashden Award, a high-profile British honour that promotes world-leading sustainable technologies.

While China still relies on coal for 70 per cent of its energy needs and is the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, it is also quietly emerging as a global force in renewable-energy technologies.

This is being driven by government policies, China's own vast market and businesses seizing opportunities in a fast-growing global industry, according to the China programme manager for the Worldwatch Institute, Ms Liu Yingling.

'China has the potential to be a world leader in the renewable-energy sector,' Washington-based Ms Liu said. 'Changes (in China) are happening in the right directions towards cleaner and more sustainable energy sources, and the trends will likely be accelerated.'

China currently gets 8 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, and the official target is to increase that to around 15 per cent by 2020.

The drive will give China 30 per cent, or US$300 billion (S$440 billion), of worldwide orders for energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies and equipments in the coming five years, according to deputy commerce minister Wei Jiangguo.

Already, solar water heaters can be seen on the roofs of remote village homes and endless lines of new urban apartments.

China's ability to drive product costs down globally is also seen as a cause for optimism in the struggle against climate change.

For example, the country has emerged as the world's biggest and cheapest exporter of energy-saving light bulbs.

Chinese firms are also beginning to dominate the market for solar technologies. Jiangsu-based Suntech Power is one of the world's leading makers of equipment that turns sunlight into electricity.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE