[At the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that his nation would no longer finance coal projects in other countries, and would redirect its support to green and low-carbon energy, following similar vows earlier this year by Japan and South Korea, a priority for American climate negotiators.]
By Lily Kuo and Steven Mufson
“Climate change is coming closer
and closer to our lives,” he said, reflecting on deadly
floods in central China, hotter
temperatures across the country and abnormally heavy rains in the
typically dry north.
Ahead of a crucial climate summit
in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, all eyes are on China.
At the U.N. General Assembly on
Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that his nation would no longer
finance coal projects in other countries, and would redirect its support to
green and low-carbon energy, following similar vows earlier this year by Japan
and South Korea, a priority for American climate negotiators.
China has in any case been scaling
back assistance for large numbers of coal-fired power plants that were being
built abroad as part of China’s development program called the Belt and Road
Initiative. As many as half of 52 plants launched since 2014 have been shelved,
including one in Zimbabwe that China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank abandoned
in June.
It also remains unclear what will
happen to coal plant construction still in progress.
But David Sandalow, a senior fellow
at Columbia University’s center for global energy and a former official at the
State and Energy departments, said that “closing the spigot matters” and that
it would send “a strong signal to power developers around the world that any
new coal power plants would face significant headwinds in the years ahead.”
With China as the world’s largest
carbon emitter, home to 1.4 billion people and a still-expanding economy, the
nation’s strategy for cutting emissions could be the most important factor in
whether countries are able to prevent irreversible and catastrophic damage to
the Earth.
The Chinese leadership has pledged
to reach peak emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. But
it must balance competing priorities, including overhauling an entrenched
economic model reliant on heavy industry and managing growth in a pandemic.
Authorities must also demonstrate to the Chinese public that drastic moves to
curb emissions are in the interest of the country and not the result of
pressure from the West, especially the United States.
“There is a very delicate tension
between doing this individually, and sending the signal that we are doing this
for our self interest and not doing something for the United States,” said Li
Shuo, a senior adviser at Greenpeace East Asia based in Beijing.
President Xi Jinping announced his
“dual carbon goals” last September, following up with pledges to “phase down”
the use of coal starting in 2026 and appointing a leading group to measure
emissions. In July, China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said the 2060
goal meant neutralizing greenhouse gases from all sectors of the economy, not
just carbon dioxide.
Ahead of the Conference of Parties,
or COP26 as the climate conference is known, the government is preparing a plan
called the “1+N” framework for achieving carbon neutrality. Climate advocates
were watching for the release of more information, possibly on Tuesday when Xi
is scheduled to speak at the United Nations General Assembly.
China’s climate pledges come as the
country’s emissions and fleet of coal-fired power plants have grown during the
economic recovery from the pandemic. Ahead of the 2030 deadline, heavy industries
are also racing to get carbon-intensive projects approved before limits are put
in place, or “charging to the peak,” a practice Chinese officials have
denounced.
Even after factoring in the plants
retired in 2020, China’s coal-fired fleet capacity last year rose by a net 29.8
gigawatts, more than the cuts made by the rest of the world, according to
research released by Global Energy Monitor, a U.S. think tank, and the
Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). In the first
quarter of this year, China’s carbon dioxide emissions were 9 percent higher
than pre-pandemic levels, according to the CREA.
“The big open questions are: When
exactly are emissions going to peak before 2030, and at what level are they
going to peak?” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a researcher at CREA. “Having China’s
emissions increase just doesn’t add up even if the leadership is saying they
are going to do a lot after 2030,” he said.
[Chinese
greenhouse gas emissions now larger than those of developed countries combined]
Within China, observers are also
waiting for details as to how authorities plan to maintain growth while
transforming the economy, especially a state-owned sector known for
carbon-intensive industries such as steel, cement and aluminum.
“We want to see what this peak
level will be … what is the total target?” said Liu Zhe, director of research,
data and innovation at World Resources Institute China.
The central government is promoting
a policy of “build first, destroy later,” or building up renewable energy capacity
before decommissioning fossil-fuel sources. Yet coal, still much cheaper than
renewables in China, accounts for almost 70 percent of the country’s power
generation.
“Cutting emissions comes with a
cost, which is GDP. The question is how much of a cost does the Chinese
government want to pay,” said Yu Lihong, professor at East China University of
Science and Technology in Shanghai focusing on energy and economics.
“Getting rid of coal in 20 or 30
years will be very difficult. I think even within 50 years is difficult. Coal’s
presence is too big,” she said.
Finding the oasis
Divisions between the world’s two
largest emitters complicate prospects of success in Glasgow. When President
Barack Obama and Xi sealed a deal to limit their countries’ carbon dioxide
emissions in 2014, a full year before the Paris climate summit, it gave both
leaders a diplomatic and environmental victory and provided cover for other
countries to follow with their own pledges.
Less than six weeks before the
Glasgow talks, the United States and China have not forged a new agreement.
Instead, the relationship is riven by disputes over forced labor and other
abuses in Xinjiang, a crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, the status of Taiwan
and Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, among other hot-button
issues.
During U.S. climate envoy John F.
Kerry’s visit to Tianjin this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned
that climate collaboration could not be an “oasis” in the broader context of
deteriorating U.S.-China ties. “If the oasis is surrounded by desert, sooner or
later the oasis will also become desert,” Wang said, citing sanctions on
Chinese officials and U.S. efforts to extradite Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou
as sticking points.
Kerry told The Washington Post that
Chinese officials also pushed for the United States to lift sanctions on solar panel makers in exchange for
climate change cooperation.
But President Biden has brought on
two top Asia advisers, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi, who are unlikely to yield
to China. Campbell wrote about a U.S. “pivot” toward Asia to balance China.
Doshi has a newly released book, “The
Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.”
[Solar
industry’s ties to China’s Xinjiang region raise specter of forced labor]
“With China, tensions are higher
than at any time in decades,” Sandalow said. “It does not augur well for
bilateral cooperation on climate change. It makes it much more difficult. Not
impossible but much more difficult.”
Still, some are optimistic that Xi
brought Xie, the climate negotiator, out of retirement to oversee China’s
strategy. “If anyone can reach an agreement, Secretary Kerry and Minister Xie
can,” Sandalow said.
In other areas, China has been
aggressive about climate action. It is the world’s largest electric vehicle
market. The country plans to install up to 65 gigawatts of solar power capacity
this year, according to China’s solar manufacturing association. In July, the country
established the world’s largest carbon trading system, which Ma Jun, director
of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing, described as
“important symbolically.”
The price of carbon in the program
was less than $8 a ton. Most climate economists believe the price of carbon
must reach more than $100 a ton. “Eventually I think it’s going to have its
impact,” Ma said.
Authorities must also contend with
skepticism among the general public. Although China is vulnerable to climate
change — from its densely populated coastal cities, export hubs and ports to
regions prone to floods and drought — the public has not experienced the kind
of broad-based climate awakening seen in other countries.
Critics from patriotic bloggers to academics go
as far as claiming China’s leaders have been hoodwinked by Western counterparts
trying to hold China back. Limited public awareness of the climate
crisis means authorities must tread a fine line, according to Dimitri de Boer,
chief representative of the ClientEarth nonprofit’s Beijing office.
“It would be quite dangerous if
there was a perception among the Chinese public that the Chinese government is
doing this because it is being pushed into it by foreign actors,” de Boer said.
“For a lot of people in China it’s
still a distant thing. The government says we should [take action] but they
don’t understand why or how.”
Pei Lin Wu and Alicia Chen in
Taipei contributed to this report.
Read more
Kerry
urges China to cut emissions faster, as Beijing seeks easing of solar sanctions
As
they gather at U.N., world leaders face furious push to act quickly on climate
change
Biden’s
climate summit shows rivalry with U.S. complicates China’s green push
