A stronger partnership between China and Europe on innovative clean technologies is needed to make up for the imperfect UN forum on climate change, a senior Italian negotiator has said.

In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Corrado Clini, director general of the Italian ministry for the environment, land and sea, said Europe should grasp "the right time and maybe the last opportunity" to build a strong partnership with China, whose heavy investment in clean technologies and crucial role in cooperation will lead to a transformation of the global economy.

China faces strong pressures to meet demands from its fast economic growth, which will be fueled by energy consumption, Clini said, but at the same time, China is also leading the world in terms of its investment in innovative technologies for the generation and efficient use of energy, as well as the conservation of natural resources.

"If you look at the allocation of public finances in these areas, China is investing more than many countries in the world, including the United States and European countries," he said.

In this sense, the economic growth of China will be supported by innovative technologies and solutions.

And China is playing a new role in identifying solutions for developing countries, according to Clini.

"For instance, the cooperation between China, South Africa and Brazil may become even more important in the coming years than the cooperation between the EU and China," he said.

"This is a big change in the global geography of the economy and diplomacy. So China's domestic market will also become the most important market in the world for innovative technologies and solutions," Clini said.

Projects between Italy and China on environmental protection have brought huge business opportunities for Italian enterprises, he said.

During the past decade, Italy's environment ministry has invested about $220 million in China for projects like sustainable buildings, electric cars and training for environment officials.

According to the Sino-Italian agreement, China needs to co-finance the projects in order to attract more investors and facilitate technology transfers from Italy to China.

The addition of money from the Chinese government plus the private sector brought the total figure to about $1.45 billion, he said.

Meanwhile, the cooperation between Europe and China can supplement the UN's climate negotiations, and push forward concrete steps on reducing carbon emissions, according to Clini.

"The failure of the Copenhagen talks is mainly a result of a mistake by the UN and the European Union, who tried to force an agreement on carbon emission reduction, without indicating the instruments and mechanisms for meeting the commitments," Clini said.

"The emission reduction goal means that we should change the global energy system in the next 10 years," he said.

"We have to set the mechanism for financing the transformation, and change rules, such as reduce barriers and tariffs for exporting new technologies from the US and Europe," he said.