China’s energy sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increased 5.2% in 2023, meaning a record fall of 4-6% is needed by 2025 to meet the government’s “carbon intensity” target.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows rapid electricity demand growth and weak rains boosted demand for coal power in 2023, while the rebound from zero-Covid boosted demand for oil.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
- China’s CO2 emissions have now increased by 12% between 2020 and 2023, after a highly energy- and carbon-intensive response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- This means CO2 emissions would need to fall by 4-6% by 2025, in order to meet the target of cutting China’s carbon intensity – its CO2 emissions per unit of economic output – by 18% during the 14th five-year plan period.
- China is also at risk of missing all of its other key climate targets for 2025, including pledges to “strictly limit” coal demand growth and “strictly control” new coal power capacity, as well as targets for energy intensity, the share of low-carbon energy in overall demand and the share of renewables in energy demand growth.
- Government pressure to hit the targets, most of which are in China’s updated international climate pledge under the Paris Agreement, makes it more likely that China’s CO2 emissions will peak before 2025 – far earlier than its target of peaking “before 2030”.
The deadline for peaking CO2 emissions has led officials and industries to pursue rapid emissions growth and carbon-intensive projects, while a window to do so remains open.
The government recently recognised and responded to the gap to meeting its targets, by calling for stronger controls on such projects, as well as faster renewables deployment.
Most of China’s climate targets can be met if the acceleration of clean energy deployment during 2023 is maintained – and if energy demand growth returns to pre-Covid levels.
- China’s CO2 emissions continued to increase in 2023
- China is off track to all of its 2025 climate targets
- Official energy data is over-reporting coal consumption growth
- Government response
- The clean energy boom can allow most targets to be met
- About the data
China’s CO2 emissions continued to increase in 2023
According to preliminary official data, China’s total energy consumption increased by 5.7% in 2023, the first time since at least 2005 that energy demand has grown faster than GDP.
With coal consumption growing by 4.4%, our analysis shows CO2 emissions increasing by 5.2% – at the same rate as GDP – highlighting energy-intensive recent growth patterns.
China’s economic growth during and after the Covid-19 pandemic has been highly energy- and carbon-intensive. CO2 emissions grew at an average of 3.8% per year in 2021-23, up from 0.9% a year in 2016-20, while GDP growth slowed from an average of 5.7% to 5.4%.
Another year of rapidly rising emissions in 2023 leaves China way off track against its target of cutting carbon intensity by 18% during the 14th five-year plan (2021-25).
As a result, CO2 emissions would now need to fall by 4-6% by 2025 to hit the goal. This is illustrated in the figure below, showing historical emissions (black line) and the reductions needed by 2025 to hit the carbon intensity target, depending on the rate of GDP growth.
Even if China’s GDP growth is high and averages 6% per year in 2024-25, the intensity target requires CO2 emissions to fall by 4%.
The main drivers of the emissions increase in 2023 were coal-fired power and oil consumption, which increased by 6% and 8%, respectively.
A major reason for the growth in power generation from coal was that hydropower operating rates reached the lowest level in more than two decades due to a series of droughts. These operating rates are likely to recover towards average levels in 2024.
The increase in oil consumption represents a rebound from the slow demand growth during zero-Covid and an outright drop in 2022. Gas consumption rebounded as prices came down from 2022 highs, while still remaining elevated.
The clean energy manufacturing boom also has a role in driving emissions, due to energy-intensive processes involved in the production of solar PV and batteries, in particular.
Approximately one percentage-point of CO2 emission growth can be attributed to these sectors, based on output data and emission intensities estimated for solar PV, electric vehicles and batteries.
This means that, without the clean technology manufacturing boom, China’s CO2 emissions would have grown by around 4.2%, instead of the 5.2% estimated in our analysis.
Nevertheless, the increase in manufacturing will result in a significant reduction in emissions in net terms, once the products are in use. About half of this reduction will be realised outside of China, as the products are exported.
China is off track to all of its 2025 climate targets
China’s climate pledge under the Paris Agreement (nationally determined contribution, NDC) was updated in 2021, following commitments made by President Xi Jinping earlier that year and incorporating targets set under the 14th five-year plan.
The updated NDC makes commitments to strictly limit coal consumption growth; strictly control new coal power; reduce energy and carbon intensity by 2025; and increase the share of non-fossil energy sources to 25% by 2030.
In addition, the country’s five-year plans set targets of increasing the share of non-fossil energy sources to 20% by 2025 and deriving more than 50% of the increase in energy use from 2020 to 2025 overall from renewable sources.
All of these targets are severely off track after 2023.
The table below lists the various climate- and energy-related targets, the progress seen from 2020-23 and what would be needed during 2024-25 to achieve each of the goals. (See below for further details on each indicator and what is needed by 2025.)
China’s 2025 climate commitments and targets in the energy sector
| Indicator | Target | Progress in 2020-23 | Change needed in 2024-25 |
| Carbon intensity | -18% | -4.6% (-1.5%/year) | -7%/year; reduce emissions in absolute terms |
| Energy intensity | -13.5% | -2% (-0.6%/year) | -6%/year; reduce energy use in absolute terms |
| Coal consumption growth | “strictly limit” | Annual growth increased eightfold from 0.5% in 2016-20 to 3.8% | Negative growth to limit increase to the same rate as previous five-year period |
| New coal power projects | “strictly control” | Permits increased fourfold, from 25GW per year in 2016-20 to 110GW per year | Restrict new permits and review permits already granted |
| Non-fossil share of energy overall | Increase by 4.1 percentage points | Increased by 1.8 percentage points (0.6 points per year) | Rate of increase has to double to 1.2 points per year |
| Share of energy consumption growth met by renewables | Above 50% | 30%, down from 42% in 2016-20 | Renewable energy growth needs to double and energy consumption growth needs to slow to pre-Covid rate; total consumption of fossil fuels needs to fall.Renewable energy growth needs to double and energy consumption growth needs to slow to pre-Covid rate; total consumption of fossil fuels needs to fall. |
The centrepiece of China’s 2020 and 2025 climate commitments has been reducing carbon intensity, or CO2 emissions from energy use per unit of GDP.
The country’s carbon intensity reportedly fell 48% from 2005 to 2020. China committed to an 18% fall from 2020 to 2025 – and to reducing carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels by 2030, which requires a further reduction of at least 17% from 2025 to 2030.
However, as of the end of 2023, China’s carbon intensity has only fallen 5% in the 14th five-year plan period, lagging far behind the target of 18% from 2020 to 2025. If this target is to be met, CO2 emissions will have to come down in absolute terms from 2023 to 2025.
The figure below shows how China overachieved against its carbon intensity target for 2015-2020 but is veering increasingly off track against the goal for 2020-2025.
China’s energy intensity increased by 0.5% in 2023, the first annual rise since at least 2005. From 2020 to 2023, energy intensity only fell 2%.
The figure below shows that China narrowly missed its energy intensity target during the 13th five-year plan period, spanning 2016 to 2020, as progress halted in 2020. The country is now far off track for its 14th five-year plan target.
Indeed, to meet the target of a 13.5% reduction over 2020-25 – given the lack of progress as of the end of 2023 – energy consumption would have to fall in absolute terms over the next two years, while the rate of GDP growth is maintained or accelerated. This makes the goal all but unachievable.
The share of China’s energy demand met by non-fossil sources has increased by 1.8 percentage points from 2020 to 2023, against a target of 4.1 points by 2025.
This is shown in the figure below, illustrating the targeted 15% share for non-fossil energy by 2020 and 20% by 2025, as well as progress to date.
Meeting the 2025 target would mean that the rate of increase needs to double for the next two years. Moreover, if energy demand growth continues at the exceptionally high rate of 2020 to 2023, then energy production from non-fossil sources would need to grow at 11.3% per year to meet the target, up from 8.5% in the past three years.
Alternatively, the growth of renewables and nuclear could be maintained – but energy consumption growth would have to slow down to its pre-Covid average.
Only 30% of energy consumption growth has been met by renewable energy in 2020 to 2023, against a target of more than 50% during 2020-25.
This is illustrated in the figure below, showing contributions to annual energy demand growth from fossil fuels (grey bars), nuclear (blue) and renewables (red).
The 50% target is now highly unlikely to be met without a slowdown in energy consumption growth. Without a slowdown, renewables would have to grow by 20% per year to meet the target, up from 8.9% in the past three years.
Both growth in coal consumption and new coal power projects accelerated sharply in 2021-23, despite Xi’s pledges to “strictly control” them.
This is illustrated in the figure below, with annual coal consumption growth on the left and the amount of new coal capacity added each year on the right.
Indeed, the average growth rate of coal consumption increased 8-fold from 0.5% per year in 2016-20 to 3.8% per year in 2021-23.
Similarly, new coal power approvals increased fourfold in 2022-23, compared with the five years before the “strictly control” pledge, based on analysis of Global Energy Monitor data.
Since the beginning of 2022, a total of 218 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power plants have been permitted. By the end of 2023, some 89GW of this capacity had already started construction, while 128GW had yet to break ground.
Furthermore, the government’s official policy has shifted to strongly encouraging new coal power. An assessment of the projects permitted in 2022-23 shows that requirements, set for approving new coal power plants in August 2021, have not been enforced.
Statements from developers and government officials – see below – confirm that the 14th five-year plan period until 2025 is being seen as a “window of opportunity” for new coal power plants, rather than a period when new projects are strictly controlled.
This is causing a rush to secure permits for new projects. China Shenhua called the period until 2025 “an opportune time for thermal power construction”. The provincial state-owned enterprise supervisor boasts of Inner Mongolia Energy Group “achieving a flying start” to 2023 and “seizing the policy window” for coal power projects.
The Zhejiang province energy regulator emphasised the importance of seizing the time window for thermal power construction during the 14th five-year period.
Power China called for joint efforts with local government officials to exploit the coal power development window effectively, citing a plan known as “three times 80GW”. This refers to a proposal promoted by the thermal power construction industry to permit and commission 80GW of coal power plants each year, from 2022 to 2024.
The meaning of the pledges to “strictly control” growth in coal consumption and new coal power projects lacks a precise definition. However, a sharp acceleration of coal consumption growth and coal power plant approvals, along with active government promotion of new projects, is hard to reconcile with the pledge to exert strict control.
By this logic, meeting the pledge on coal consumption growth would require, at the very least, reducing coal use from 2023 to 2025 to bring the growth rate during the 2021 to 2025 period closer to the rate during the preceding five-year period.
Similarly, meeting the commitment to control new coal power projects would require enforcing existing policy to limit new schemes, restricting new permits and reviewing permits already granted, to limit the acceleration compared with the preceding five-year period.
Official energy data is over-reporting coal consumption growth
In 2022, government policies seeking to increase coal mine output and push down coal prices led to a sharp deterioration in the quality and calorific value of coal produced.
This fall in quality meant that the weight of coal being consumed increased by far more than the amount of energy supplied or CO2 emitted from that coal.
China’s official statistics failed to capture the change and consequently over-reported the growth in coal consumption and under-reported the improvement in CO2 intensity in 2022. This 2022 data could be expected to be revised once more complete energy statistics are released later.
Unlike in 2022, the officially-reported coal consumption growth rate for 2023 is more closely aligned with growth in coal power generation and output in key heavy industry sectors. The data indicates that coal use grew 4.4% in 2023, while power generation from coal rose 6%.
However, the conclusion that CO2 emissions need to fall from 2023 to 2025 to meet the carbon intensity target holds, even if a correction to 2022 data is made.
Calculating with current official data, CO2 emissions need to fall by 3.8-6.5% in the next two years, depending on the growth rate of GDP.
Based on my previous estimate that the growth in CO2 emissions in 2022 was inflated by 2.3 percentage points, a correction for 2022 would put the required reduction at 1.6-4.3%.
Government response
Energy intensity and carbon intensity reduction are among the 20 “main indicators” specified in China’s overarching five-year plan for 2021-25.
The mid-term evaluation of progress, published by China’s top economic planner the national development and reform commission (NDRC) in December 2023, identified these indicators as two of the four that were off track, along with a key air quality target.
(Air pollution concentrations also rose in 2023 due to increased industrial and transportation emissions, along with unfavourable weather conditions.)
In late 2023, the NDRC reprimanded the provinces of Hubei, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Zhejiang, Anhui, Guangdong and Chongqing for lagging behind on the targets to control energy intensity and total energy consumption.
Zhou Dadi, a member of the national climate change expert advisory committee, pointed to the weak growth in service industries as the reason for the lack of progress on the intensity targets.
Service sectors have relatively low energy demand and carbon emissions relative to economic output, so the decline in their share of economic activity tends to increase the energy and carbon intensity of the economy.
The NDRC’s evaluation report also identified measures to achieve the targets, including improving policies to control energy use and carbon emissions, curbing the initiation of projects with high energy consumption and high emissions, strictly limiting total coal consumption, promoting a shift to cleaner industry and transportation, promoting energy conservation and, importantly, accelerating the deployment of renewable energy.
The clean energy boom can allow most targets to be met
While China fell severely behind on its 2025 climate targets for the energy sector, the past two years saw a veritable boom in clean energy installations – particularly solar power.
This boom puts most of the targets still in reach, especially if energy demand growth returns to the pre-Covid rates.
My earlier analysis showed that China’s CO2 emissions could fall this year and then stabilise, if additions of low-carbon power generation continue at 2023 rates and electricity demand returns to trend.
Under this projection, CO2 emissions fall by approximately 1.5% from 2023 to 2025. Therefore, achieving the 4-6% reduction in CO2 emissions needed to meet the CO2 intensity target from 2023 to 2025 would require further acceleration in clean energy deployment, or a sharp slowdown in energy demand growth.
The increase in the share of non-fossil energy should be possible to achieve given the sharp increase in solar and wind installations in 2023. To start with, slow progress was partially caused by the record-low hydropower operating rates in 2023, linked to record droughts.
Even if energy demand continued to grow at the 2020-23 rate, continued low-carbon energy additions at the 2023 level should suffice to raise the share of non-fossil energy to 21%, comfortably ahead of the target.
The target of renewable energy contributing half of the growth in total energy demand is significantly more challenging.
If energy consumption growth rate slows down to its pre-Covid average and clean energy capacity additions continue at the 2023 rate, enabling the growth rate of renewable energy production to almost double to 16%, then the target would likely be reached.
This would also mean a reduction in the total consumption of fossil fuels and a reduction in energy sector CO2 emissions. This scenario would arguably also meet the commitment to “strictly limit the growth in coal consumption”.
Meeting the pledge to “strictly control” new coal power projects would mean thoroughly assessing the justification for permits granted in the past two years and restricting the issuance of new permits.
The large amount of electricity storage being deployed – especially pumped hydro, but increasingly also grid-connected batteries – reduces the need for thermal power plants.
For a significant restriction of new coal power to be possible while ensuring electricity supply security, progress would also be needed on power system reforms that increase flexibility and make more efficient use of existing capacity.
China’s clean energy boom has been happening much faster than official targets for wind and solar installations would require, driven by enthusiasm from local governments, state-owned enterprises and investors.
However, due to the rapid increase in energy consumption, meeting China’s headline climate targets now requires that the momentum of clean energy installations is maintained.
About the data
Total energy consumption and energy mix were taken from national bureau of statistics annual data. Improvements in energy intensity and carbon intensity were compiled from the bureau’s annual statistical communiques and changes in carbon emissions were calculated based on reported GDP growth and carbon intensity improvement.
Growth in total energy consumption and changes in the energy mix were taken from preliminary information released by the national bureau of statistics. Growth in CO2 emissions in 2023 was calculated using Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change default emission factors based on changes in the consumption of coal, oil and gas.
The post Analysis: Record drop in China’s CO2 emissions needed to meet 2025 target appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Record drop in China’s CO2 emissions needed to meet 2025 target
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Rudecindo Espíndola’s family has been growing corn, figs and other crops for generations in the Soncor Valley in northern Chile, an oasis of green orchards in one of the driest places on Earth – the Atacama desert.
Perched nearly 2,500 metres above sea level, his village, Toconao, means “lost corner” in the Kunza language of the Indigenous people who have lived and farmed the land in this remote spot for millennia.
“Our deep connection to this place is based on what we have inherited from our ancestors: our culture, our language,” said Espíndola, a member of a local research team that found evidence that people have inhabited the desert for more than 12,000 years.
This distant outpost is at the heart of the global rush for lithium, a silvery-white metal used to make batteries for electric vehicles (EV) and renewable energy storage that are vital to the world’s clean energy transition. The Atacama salt flat is home to about 25% of the world’s known lithium reserves, turning Chile into the world’s second-largest lithium producer after Australia.
For decades, the Atacama’s Indigenous Lickanantay people have protested against the expansion of the lithium industry, warning that the large evaporation ponds used to extract lithium from the brine beneath the salt flats are depleting scarce and sacred water supplies and destroying fragile desert ecosystems.
Espíndola joined the protests, fearing that competition for water could pose an existential threat to his community.
But last year, he was among dozens of Indigenous representatives who sat across the table from executives representing two Chilean mining giants to hammer out a governance model that gives Indigenous communities living close to lithium sites a bigger say over operations, and a greater share of the economic benefits.
A pioneering deal
The agreement is part of a landmark deal between state-owned copper miner Codelco and lithium producer the Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) to extract lithium from the salt flats until 2060 through a joint venture called NovaAndino Litio.
The governance model that promises people living in Toconao and other villages around the salt flats millions of dollars in benefits and greater environmental oversight is the first of its kind in mineral-rich Chile, and has been hailed by industry experts as the start of a potential model for more responsible mining for energy transition metals.
NovaAndino told Climate Home News the negotiations with local communities represented an “unprecedented process that has allowed us to incorporate the territory’s vision early in the project’s design” and creates “a system of permanent engagement” with local communities.
The company added it will contribute to sustainable development in the area and help “the safeguarding of [the Lickanantay people’s] culture and environmental values”.
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For mining companies, such agreements could help reduce social conflicts and protests, which have delayed and stalled extraction in other parts of South America’s lithium-rich region, known as the lithium triangle.
“Argentina and Bolivia could learn a lot from what we’re doing [here],” said Rodrigo Guerrero, a researcher at the Santiago-based Espacio Público think-tank, adding that adopting participatory frameworks early on could prevent them from “going through the entire cycle of disputes” that Chile has experienced.
Justice at last?
As part of the governance deal, NovaAndino has pledged to adopt technologies that will reduce water use and mitigate the environmental impacts of lithium extraction.
It has also committed to hold more than 100 annual meetings with community representatives to build a “good faith” relationship, and an Indigenous Advisory Council will meet twice a year with the company’s sustainability committee to discuss its environmental strategy, company sources said. The meetings are due to begin next month.
To oversee the agreement’s implementation, an assembly – composed of representatives from all 25 signatory communities – will track the project’s progress. In addition, NovaAndino will hold one-on-one meetings with each community to address issues such as the hiring of local people and the protection of Indigenous employees.
Espíndola said the deal, while far from perfect, was an important step forward.
“Previously, Indigenous participation was ambiguous. Now we talk about participation at [every] hierarchical level of this process, a very strong empowerment for Indigenous communities,” said Espíndola, adding that it did not give local communities everything they had asked for. For instance, they will not hold veto power over NovaAndino’s decisions or have a formal shareholder role.
But after years of conflict with mining companies, a form of “participatory justice is being done”, he said.
Not everyone is convinced that the accord, pushed by Chile’s former leftist government, marks progress, however.
“Not in our name”
The negotiations have caused deep divisions among the Lickanantay, some of whom say greater engagement with mining companies will not stop irreparable damage to the salt flats on which their traditional way of life depends. Others fear the promise of more money will further erode community bonds.
In January 2024, Indigenous communities from five villages closest to the mining operations, including Toconao, blocked the main access roads to the lithium extraction sites. They said the Council of Atacameño Peoples, which represents 18 Lickanantay communities and was leading discussions with the company, no longer spoke for them.
Official transcripts of consultations on the extension of the lithium contracts and how to share the promised benefits reveal deep divisions. Tensions peaked when communities around the mining operations clashed over how to distribute the multimillion-dollar windfall, with villages closest to the mining sites demanding the largest share.
Eventually, separate deals establishing a new governance framework over mining activities were reached between Codelco and SQM with 25 local communities, including a specific agreement for the five villages closest to the extraction sites.
The division caused by the separate deal for the five villages “will cause historic damage” to the unity of the Atacama desert’s Indigenous peoples, said Hugo Flores, president of the Council of Atacameño Associations, a separate group representing farmers, herders and local workers who oppose the mining expansion.
Sonia Ramos, 83, a renowned Lickanantay healer and well-known anti-mining activist, lamented the fracturing of social bonds over money, and for the sake of meeting government objectives.
“There is fragmentation among the communities themselves. Everything has transformed into disequilibrium,” said the 83-year-old.
“[NovaAndino] supposedly has economic significance for the country, but for us, it is the opposite,” she said.
The company told Climate Home News it has “acted consistently” to promote “transparent, voluntary, and good-faith dialogue with the communities in the territory, recognising their diversity and autonomy, and always respecting their timelines and forms of participation”.
A one-off deal or a model for others?
The NovaAndino joint venture is a pillar of Chile’s strategy to double lithium production by 2031 and consolidate the copper-producing nation’s role in the clean energy transition as demand for battery minerals accelerates.
Chile’s new far-right president, José Antonio Kast, who was sworn in last week, promised to respect the lithium contracts signed by his predecessor’s administration – including the governance model.
Still, some experts say the splits over the new model highlight the need for legislation that mandates direct engagement and minimum community benefits for all large mining projects.
“In the past, this has lent itself to clientelism, communities who negotiate best or arrive first get the better deal,” said Pedro Zapata, a programme officer in Chile for the Natural Resource Governance Institute.
“This can be to the detriment of other communities with less strength. We cannot have first- and second-class citizens subject to the same industry,” he added.
The government is already negotiating two more public-private partnerships to extract lithium with mining giant Rio Tinto, which it said would include a framework to engage with Indigenous communities and share some of the revenues. The details will need to be negotiated between local people, the government and the company.
Sharing the benefits of mining
Under the deal in the Atacama, NovaAndino will run SQM’s current lithium concessions until they expire in 2030 before seeking new permits to expand mining in the region under a vast project known as “Salar Futuro” – a process which will require further mandatory consultations with communities.
Besides the participatory mechanism, the new agreement promises more money than ever before for salt flat communities.
Depending on the global price of lithium and their proximity to the mining operations, Indigenous communities could collectively receive roughly $30 million annually in funding – about double what SQM currently disburses under existing contracts.
When taking into account the company’s payments to local and regional authorities, contributions could reach $150 million annually, according to the government.
To access these resources, each community will need to submit a pipeline of projects they would like funding for under a complex arrangement that includes five separate financial streams:
- A general investment fund will distribute funding based on each village’s size and proximity to the mining sites
- A development fund will support projects specifically in the five communities closest to the extraction sites
- Contributions to farmers and livestock associations
- Contributions to local governments
- A groundbreaking “intergenerational fund” held in trust for the Lickanantay until 2060
For many isolated communities in the Atacama desert, financial contributions from mining firms have funded essential public services, such as healthcare and facilities like football pitches and swimming pools.
In the past, communities have used some of the benefits they received from mining to build their own environmental monitoring units, hiring teams of hydrogeologists and lawyers to scrutinise miners’ activities.
Espíndola said the new model could pave the way for more ambitious development projects such as water treatment plants and community solar energy projects.
Competition for water
The depletion of water resources is one of local people’s biggest environmental concerns.
To extract lithium from the salt flats, miners pump lithium-rich brine accumulated over millions of years in underground reservoirs into gigantic pools, where the water is left to evaporate under the sun and leaves behind lithium carbonate.
One study has shown that the practice is causing the salt flat to sink by up to two centimetres a year. SQM recently said its current operations consume approximately 11,500 to 12,500 litres of industrial freshwater for every metric ton of lithium produced.
NovaAndino has committed to significantly reduce the company’s water use by returning at least 30% of the water it extracts from the brine and eliminating the use of all freshwater in its operations within five years of obtaining an environmental permit.
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Cristina Dorador, a microbiologist at the University of Antofagasta, told Climate Home News that reinjecting the water underground is untested at a large scale and could impact the chemical composition of the salt flats.
Continuing to extract lithium from the flats until 2060 could be the “final blow” for this fragile ecosystem, she said.
Asked to comment on such concerns, NovaAndino said any new technology will be “subject to the highest regulatory standards”, and pledged to ensure transparency through “an updated monitoring system with the participation of Indigenous communities”.
High price for hard-won gains
For the five communities living on the doorstep of the lithium pools, one of the biggest gains is being granted physical access to the mining sites to monitor the lithium extraction and its impact on the salt flats.
That is a first and will strengthen communities’ ability to call out environmental harms, said Sergio Cubillos, the community president of Peine, the village closest to the evaporation ponds. It could also give them the means to seek remediation through the courts if necessary, Espíndola said.
Gaining such rights represents long-overdue progress, Cubillos said, but it has come at a high price for the Lickanantay people.
“Communities receiving money today is what has ultimately led to this division, because we haven’t been able to figure out what we want, how we want it, and how we envision our future as a people,” he said.
Main image: A truck loads concentrated brine at SQM’s lithium mine at the Atacama salt flat in Chile (Photo: REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado)
The post Landmark deal to share Chile’s lithium windfall fractures Indigenous communities appeared first on Climate Home News.
Landmark deal to share Chile’s lithium windfall fractures Indigenous communities
Diplomats will hold a series of informal meetings this year in a bid to revive stalled talks over a global treaty to curb plastic pollution, before aiming to reconvene for the next round of official negotiations at the end of 2026 or early 2027.
Hoping to find a long-awaited breakthrough in the deeply divided UN process, the chair of the talks, Chilean ambassador Julio Cordano, released a roadmap on Monday to inject momentum into the discussions after negotiations collapsed at a chaotic session in Geneva last August.
Cordano wrote in a letter that countries would meet in Nairobi from June 30 to July 3 for informal discussions to review all the components of the negotiations, including thorny issues such as efforts to limit soaring plastic production.
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The gathering should result in the drafting of a new document laying the foundations of a future treaty text with options on elements with divergent views, but “no surprises” such as new ideas or compromise proposals. This plan aims to address the fact that countries left Geneva without a draft text to work on – something Cordano called a “significant limitation” in his letter.
“Predictable pathway”
The meeting in the Kenyan capital will follow a series of virtual consultations every four to six weeks, where heads of country delegations will exchange views on specific topics. A second in-person meeting aimed at finding solutions might take place in early October, depending on the availability of funding.
Cordano said the roadmap should offer “a predictable pathway” in the lead-up to the next formal negotiating session, which is expected to take place over 10 days at the end of 2026 or early 2027. A host country has yet to be selected, but Climate Home News understands that Brazil, Azerbaijan or Kenya – the home of the UN Environment Programme – have been put forward as options.
Countries have twice failed to agree on a global plastics treaty at what were meant to be final rounds of negotiations in December 2024 and August 2025.
Divisions on plastic production
One of the most divisive elements of the discussions remains what the pact should do about plastic production, which, according to the UN, is set to triple by 2060 without intervention.
A majority, which includes most European, Latin American, African and Pacific island nations, wants to limit the manufacturing of plastic to “sustainable levels”. But large fossil fuel and petrochemical producers, led by Saudi Arabia, the United States, Russia and India, say the treaty should only focus on managing plastic waste.
As nearly all plastic is made from planet-heating oil, gas and coal, the sector’s trajectory will have a significant impact on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Countries still far apart
After an eight-month hiatus, informal discussions restarted in early March at an informal meeting of about 20 countries hosted by Japan.
A participant told Climate Home News that, while the gathering had been helpful to test ideas, progress remained “challenging”, with national stances largely unchanged.
The source added that countries would need to achieve a significant shift in positions in the coming months to make reconvening formal negotiations worthwhile.
Deep divisions persist as plastics treaty talks restart at informal meeting
Jacob Kean-Hammerson, global plastics policy lead at Greenpeace USA, said the new roadmap offers an opportunity for countries to “defend and protect the most critical provisions on the table”.
He said that the document expected after the Nairobi meeting “must include and revisit proposals backed by a large number of countries, especially on plastic production, that have previously been disregarded”.
“These measures are essential to addressing the crisis at its source and must be reinstated as a key part of the negotiations,” he added.
The post Roadmap launched to restart deadlocked UN plastics treaty talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Roadmap launched to restart deadlocked UN plastics treaty talks
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