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On a sultry afternoon in Tomé-Açu, the agricultural heart of northern Brazil, farmer Zé Maria Pantoja strolls beneath the canopy of his 50 hectares of forested land. Tall açaí palms and hulking Brazil nut trees tower overhead, while cacao and cupuaçu bushes crowd the leaf-strewn ground below; the air thick with the scent of tropical growth and alive with bird chatter.

Three decades ago, this plot in the Amazon Basin state of Pará was a failing pepper monoculture owned by Zé Maria’s father. When Zé Maria proposed replanting it as a diverse forest of crops, his father balked. “Pepper had to be pepper, cacao was cacao… It would never work to plant them together,” Zé Maria recalls.

Today, that once-barren land is a technicolour abundance of cacao pods, açaí berries, Brazil nuts, passion fruit and cassava. Instead of a single annual pepper harvest, Zé Maria brings in different crops year-round – a shift he says has doubled production and income, reshaping his family’s prospects. Even his father has come around: “Today everything is fine. He agrees with it, and I know he is happy about it,” Zé Maria says.

Zé Maria has built what is known as an “agroforestry” system – integrating diverse trees and crops on the same land. It is approach rooted in Indigenous farming knowledge and practised in different forms around the world for millennia.

By blurring the line between farm and forest, agroforestry can store carbon, rebuild soils and habitat, and diversify farm incomes – making it a compelling route to decarbonise agriculture without hollowing out rural communities.

    In recent years, Zé Maria has partnered with Belterra, a Brazilian agroforestry enterprise set up in 2019. Belterra has provided technical support and seedlings to help farmers expand and connected them to markets – helping to prove that a family farm in the Amazon can be both profitable and ecologically sustainable. In 2023, Belterra was selected as an Earthshot Prize finalist for its approach.

    Across the tropics, where deforestation and land degradation drive a large share of emissions, agroforestry is being touted as a rare climate solution that can also be a livelihood strategy – as long as it is built with the people who farm the land. According to Marcelo Ferronato, president of Brazilian environmental NGO Ecoporé, “agroforestry is the best option the world has to support climate, the environment and farmers all at once.”

    Cacao (left) and Açaí (right) are a highly productive combination for agroforestry systems in Brazil. (Photo: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    Cacao (left) and Açaí (right) are a highly productive combination for agroforestry systems in Brazil. (Photo: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    The problem: A broken rural model

    Brazil’s rural development has long been driven by clearing forest for cattle and commodity crops – a frontier model that rewarded extraction and land concentration. In the Amazon Basin, official policy encouraged settlers to convert “unproductive” forest into ranches and farms.

    The result has been vast forest loss. Over the past half-century, more than 700,000 km² of Amazon rainforest has been deforested, with a further 6% heavily degraded. Scientists warn the Amazon may tip into irreversible die-back if it loses around 20% of its forest cover; estimates put losses already near 17%. Around 63% of Brazil’s roughly 160 million hectares of pasture, meanwhile, are degraded – an area roughly the size of Egypt left infertile and overrun with weeds.



    The social dynamics are equally corrosive. Brazil has one of the most unequal land distributions on Earth: just 2.8% of landowners control over 56% of arable land, while the poorest 50% of small farms own only 2.5%. With weak land registries, opportunists can grab land by clear-cutting it; local leaders who resist have faced threats, violence and even murder.

    Brazil is an extreme case, but not a unique one. Across the tropics, commodity monocultures and extensive cattle systems are major drivers of deforestation, while degraded farmland spreads as soils are mined and abandoned. Globally, agriculture – livestock and crops – has devoured roughly 50% of habitable land and left over one billion hectares of fields degraded.

    Agroforestry – an ancient solution with modern science

    Agroforestry – often categorised as ‘regenerative agriculture’ – mixes woody perennials with crops or livestock in designs intended to imitate natural ecosystems. By replacing monocultures with polycultures, agroforests can restore soil health, conserve water and support biodiversity – while keeping land in production.

    Integrating trees into farms also turns fields into carbon sinks. The UN climate body estimates that, if scaled up to its potential globally, agroforestry could sequester 1.8–4.1 gigatonnes of CO₂ every year – roughly 4-10% of annual global emissions.

    Rosivam’s farm, a multiplier in the Marajó Resiliente project of the Belterra Institute, Brazil (Photo: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    Rosivam’s farm, a multiplier in the Marajó Resiliente project of the Belterra Institute, Brazil (Photo: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    And agroforestry can also boost livelihoods. Trial sites in Zambia integrating Faidherbia albida trees yielded 88–190% more maize than sites without trees, while diversified harvests can spread risk and create multiple income streams.

    Belterra’s model: Business meets regeneration

    A former environmental official in Pará, Valmir Ortega left government in 2019 to set up Belterra. He established a private company, Belterra Agroflorestas, alongside a sister non-profit, the Belterra Institute. The company focuses on projects that can return revenue; the institute works with smaller subsistence farmers, including Indigenous and Quilombola communities, who are too small to make any discernible margins.

    Belterra Agroflorestas works through two basic arrangements: smallholder partnerships and landowner leases. In smallholder partnerships, farmers contribute land and labour (and sometimes co-investment), while Belterra provides capital and knowhow – seedlings, inputs, training and market access – under a revenue-sharing agreement. Belterra’s agronomists help the farmer design a crop mix so the system can start paying back quickly (often with fast-growing staples such as cassava and banana) while longer-term crops like cacao, açaí and timber establish.

    In the landowner leasing model, Belterra partners with owners of degraded pasture that has become unprofitable. Belterra rents the land, establishes an agroforest, and returns it after a defined period (often 10–20 years), earning revenue from the produce in the meantime.

    Deep in the Amazon, forest protection cash must vie with glitter of illegal gold

    But establishing agroforests isn’t cheap: Belterra estimates upfront investment of around US$10,000 per hectare over the first three years. To finance this, it uses blended capital – philanthropic and public funding to absorb early risk, and longer-term private finance to support scale.

    Belterra says projects can become cash-positive after around three years once early yielding crops begin producing. It also models that a mature agroforest can generate roughly US$7,000–$20,000 per hectare a year in gross harvest revenue at year 10. By contrast, a small producer who raises cattle might earn only 1,000 to 2,000 reais (US$185-$371) per hectare per year, Ferronato notes.

    The catch is time. Trees take years to bear, and agroforestry can face a long delay before the main returns arrive. Belterra tries to bridge that gap by frontloading support and intercropping fast-growing food crops early. “The farmer needs food and income in year one,” Ortega says.

    Belterra also sells carbon credits as an additional revenue stream. Belterra estimates that each hectare will sequester 250–300 tonnes of carbon over a 25 to 30-year cycle – which it aggregates and certifies for sale, helping repay investors and reward farmers. Overall Belterra’s existing projects will sequester 500,000-600,000 tonnes of carbon.



    Scaling with corporates: the supply chain shift

    Belterra isn’t only working from the bottom up. Large companies are increasingly looking to integrate agroforestry into supply chains and climate strategies – bringing capital, procurement and, potentially, scale.

    It has worked with agribusiness behemoth Cargill and Brazil’s cosmetics brand Natura on agroforestry approaches linked to supply-chain emissions, and with other buyers seeking ‘insetting’ – cutting emissions within their own sourcing rather than purchasing offsets from external projects.

    But Belterra’s most high-profile tie-up is a 2023 agreement with US e-commerce giant Amazon, which committed 90 million reais (US$18m) to fund agroforestry in Pará. The initial three-year pilot aims to restore 3,000 hectares of degraded land by planting native trees alongside cash crops such as cacao, working with around 1,000 producers. Amazon says it expects to claim around 750,000 tonnes of carbon credits over 30 years, certified under Verra’s ABACUS standard.

    “Agroforestry is right at the top of our list of scalable, catalytic climate solutions,” says Jamey Mulligan, Amazon’s head of carbon neutralisation science and strategy. “It’s a nascent space that needs nurturing, like the solar industry pre-2008.”

    What ITA Farm in Santa Isabel do Pará looked like (left) before Belterra leased it and established a burgeoning agroforestry system (right) 18 months ago. (Photo: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    What ITA Farm in Santa Isabel do Pará looked like (left) before Belterra leased it and established a burgeoning agroforestry system (right) 18 months ago. (Photo: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    In the Acará municipality of Pará, that partnership shows up as the Carbon Sequestration Producers Association: 16 farming families managing their own agroforestry plots across a now-verdant mix of açaí, cacao, andiroba and more. The association aggregates dispersed agroforests so smallholders can access carbon finance collectively – without surrendering land, autonomy or crop choices. For Amazon it offers scale and traceability; for farmers it offers bargaining power and a bridge through the years before trees mature.

    If the deals work, corporates can supply finance and reliable demand, while farmers get training, stable markets and a viable alternative to cattle or soy on degraded land. The risk, critics warn, is that agroforestry becomes a green fig leaf – which is why who controls the land and the terms of trade matters.

    A just transition grown from the ground

    There is vast potential in scaling up agroforestry across the world. In Brazil, for example, the size of the agroforestry market is predicted to roughly double to $9.7 billion by 2032.

    Globally, there are currently around 1.2 billion people practicing some form of agroforestry on roughly 1 billion hectares of land – from shade-grown coffee in Asia to alley-cropping in Africa. “We did a survey and found agroforestry systems in 83 countries, comprising over 1,000 tree species and roughly 300 crops,” says Susan Cook-Patton, lead reforestation scientist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). “There’s a lot of agroforestry out there and a lot of potential to expand.”

    Agroforestry’s promise goes beyond crops and carbon. Done well, it can bridge decarbonisation, biodiversity and livelihoods – but it only becomes part of a just transition if it strengthens, rather than erodes, the rights and incomes of the people on the ground, experts say.

    Agroforestry farmer Zé Maria Pantoja on his agroforestry farm in Tomé Açu, Brazil. (Credit: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    Agroforestry farmer Zé Maria Pantoja on his agroforestry farm in Tomé Açu, Brazil. (Credit: Oliver Gordon/JUST Stories)

    For Zé Maria, the approach has worked well. His abundant agroforest now earns enough to send his daughter to college and buy a small apartment in the city – opportunities his parents could hardly imagine.

    His success has inspired neighbours to adopt similar methods, and he credits those who taught him. They say it’s a two-way process.

    Emanuel Oliveira, agricultural consultant for Belterra – which has partnered with Zé Maria for three years now – smiles as he describes the farmer’s influence. “We’ve learned so much from him; he’s like a professor to me,” says Oliveira. “We pass on the lessons to other farmers, and we often bring them here to learn directly from him.”

    This is an abridged version of original reporting by Oliver Gordon for JUST Stories – a global project from the Institute for Human Rights and Business dedicated to finding and telling stories of people working together to advance just transitions.

    The post A just agricultural transition takes root in Brazil appeared first on Climate Home News.

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    As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP

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    Steven Stone is acting director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office of Science

    In 1934, American economist Simon Kuznets presented a paper to Congress advocating for a new way of measuring economic performance.

    The United States was reeling from the Great Depression, and Kuznets – a future Novel prize winner – wanted to gauge just how badly the country’s economy had been dented.

    His metric, which would come to be known as gross domestic product (GDP), was a breakthrough. But as pioneering as it was, Kuznets saw its limitations.

    “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income,” he wrote in the 1934 paper.

    Some nine decades on, we have largely forgotten that message. GDP has become a barometer of economic progress, a kind of one-number-that-rules-them-all upon which national policies turn and governments rise and fall.

    With the climate crisis deepening by the day – as evidenced by the heatwaves and wildfires now searing Europe – our attachment to GDP is looking like a problem.

    In a single-minded pursuit of GDP growth, humanity is inadvertently feeding several environmental crises that, over the long run, threaten to make most of us poorer, sicker and more miserable. Climate change alone could slice 20 per cent off global GDP by 2100 – a staggering number.

    Clear-cutting boosts GDP not wealth

    We need to broaden our vision and definition of economic success before it’s too late.

    I grew up in the 1970s and 80s surrounded by the mixed hardwood forests of the northeastern United States. For me, the trees were a refuge, a place to run, discover and savor the history and mystery of the land and its people.

    Those experiences with my friends were more important than the amount of money in my pocket. And they led to a realization early on in my career as an economist: that wealth is about more than just income.

    This is one of GDP’s most significant oversights.

    With every forest we clear cut and every ounce of fossil fuel we burn, GDP rises. But through those actions, we are whittling away at the natural world, which supplies us with food, water, medicine, clean air and countless other essentials.

      By focusing only on GDP, we’re ignoring what’s happening to the natural assets on which our prosperity ultimately depends. It’s like we’re driving a car and only looking at the speedometer, not the energy remaining in the battery.

      That is the difference between measuring income versus measuring wealth.

      The answer to this dilemma lies in looking beyond GDP. We must start considering a broader range of indicators when making policy decisions.

      From an environmental perspective, that means measuring and valuing natural assets like forests, water, soil, biodiversity and clean air. By assigning a value to nature, decision-makers can better understand the economic consequences of, say, strip-mining a mountain top or letting plastic waste overwhelm a river.

      There is still some debate over how exactly to do this kind of natural capital accounting. But that’s not a reason to dismiss it, as many have done. It took years of refinement to end up with the GDP formula we have today.

      Costa Rica’s example

      The idea of looking beyond GDP isn’t only a theoretical debate. Countries and communities around the world have started to make economic decisions based on their natural assets. A prime example is Costa Rica, a biodiversity hotspot where a years-long effort to conserve land and seascapes has led to a boom in tourism. That in part helped elevate the country into the club of high-income nations.

      This kind of environmentally focused economic decision making can pay huge dividends. By stabilizing the climate, ending pollution and halting the loss of the natural world, humanity could save millions of lives a year and create US$20 trillion in economic benefits annually by 2070, found the Global Environment Outlook 7, a 2025 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report was funded by the European Union among others.

      I began my career as an economist before moving to UNEP, which focuses on solving the world’s thorniest environmental problems. During that time, I’ve come to appreciate that “wealth” means more than simply “income.” True prosperity means being able to provide for ourselves now and into the future. Anything short of that is an empty kind of affluence – and ultimately doomed to be short-lived.

      As deadly heat blankets our cities, species slip into extinction and the planet struggles with rising toxicity and pollution, I am convinced that we can do better at measuring what matters. And that means updating and expanding how we measure economic progress.

      The post As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP appeared first on Climate Home News.

      As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP

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      When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño

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      Amira Odeh Quiñones is a hydrologist and Caribbean organiser for the 350.org climate campaign group

      El Niño, likely to be one of the strongest in modern history, has arrived on Caribbean shores.

      Drought is slowly creeping up on our islands. But unlike the fiery wildfires ravaging parts of Europe, there’s no smoke signalling the damage being done, no sirens to warn of the danger. Only announcements from public health officials to stay indoors and remain hydrated — as if outdoor workers and farming communities have the luxury to heed such advice.

      During El Niño, strong atmospheric winds alter rain patterns and trap heat across the Caribbean. But while we have experienced El Niño many times before, it has become very visible in recent years how climate change is making this natural phenomenon worse.

      Across the Greater Antilles, temperatures are soaring past 38°C (100°F), with real-feel indexes reaching a gruelling 43°C in parts of Puerto Rico where I live. Cuba has it worse. Widespread power outages mean that methods for cooling down are unavailable for most of the day, leaving millions of vulnerable people at risk of heat stroke when temperatures hit 38°C.

      Santa Marta coalition tested as co-chair Colombia turns back to fossil fuels

      During the last strong drought a decade ago, I had water only two days a week in my home. Today, there are many families whose taps are about to run completely dry. Water authorities have already begun strict rationing in some municipalities, with more on the list scheduled for rationing if conditions don’t change.

      Water rationing is far more than an inconvenience; it is an immediate health risk. This means thousands of people need to constantly haul heavy buckets up flights of stairs just so they could bathe, cook, stay hydrated – the basics of survival.

      Heat causes health problems

      Puerto Rico is home to roughly 300,000 elderly residents. Many live alone, isolated and without support. They risk severe physical injury when carrying heavy water containers, and are wont to suffer from silent heat exhaustion in unventilated rooms.

      Furthermore, when water shortages force residents to store water in open household containers, it inadvertently creates breeding grounds for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Paired with scorching temperatures that tend to shorten the mosquito breeding cycle, the region is facing explosive outbreaks of dengue fever that endanger our most vulnerable: children and the elderly.

      The economic fallout is equally devastating. Dry fields mean millions of dollars in lost crops, forcing small agricultural businesses to collapse, needing urgent government relief to survive. Extreme fuel shortages have already paralyzed Cuba’s agricultural sector, cutting food output by 60% – the El Niño dry spell threatens to decimate it.

      At sea, warmer ocean waters fuel massive influxes of sargassum seaweed. Rotting sargassum chokes our beaches, destroying the local tourism industry that so many working families rely on. Tangled seaweed also damages nets and boat engines, slashing fish catches and driving up equipment costs for local fishers.

      In the south of Puerto Rico, the coastal town of La Parguera is currently witnessing a historic amount of sargassum on its shores. This has halted most of the boating activity in the area, which is the seaside town’s main tourist draw and economic driver.

      All over the Caribbean, from town halls to local group gatherings, the story I hear is always the same: constant headaches, lost work hours, failing health, and a sense that quality of life is silently being stolen. The compounding effects of heatwaves, drought, and marine destruction are exhausting our people, our islands.

      Climate change to blame

      Climate change makes each El Niño year hotter and more damaging. Higher baseline global temperatures increase the energy and moisture available for extreme weather. Latest projections show that El Niño may push the monthly global average temperature past 2°C of warming for the first time in early 2027. In the Caribbean islands, that will not just be breaking records – it’ll be breaking lives.

      Recently, I had the opportunity to share a panel with climate scientists behind what is known as the field of “attribution science” – or the science that compares today’s climate conditions to what the Earth’s climate would be like without human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels. They’re unequivocal: it’s no longer a question of whether extreme weather is caused by climate change, it’s just a question of how much.

        Attribution science recently got a boost from the U.S.’ top scientific advisory body. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recognized that researchers’ methods have advanced considerably in recent years, resulting in better assessments on how much extreme weather can be attributed to human-caused climate change. It noted that attribution findings could be relevant in some types of legal cases, including those seeking damages from oil companies for climate impacts.

        This crisis, which is already taking a heavy toll on our communities’ survival, needs real, urgent, and structural action that goes beyond aid. With similar droughts now gripping parts of Asia and Africa, we’re falling into the familiar narrative of treating the looming humanitarian crisis as if no one was to blame, as if it is being caused solely by a natural phenomenon we can’t control.

        It’s not. The world was already on fire before its regular visitor, El Niño, came. While we need humanitarian action, we need climate action too, in order to permanently put out the flames.

        The post When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño appeared first on Climate Home News.

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        Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change?

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        China has released a five-year plan dedicated to addressing climate change.

        The 15th five-year plan for a national response to climate change is the latest in a series to outline in-depth climate and energy targets for the 2026-2030 period.

        These include five-year plans for “building a Beautiful China”, developing a “new-type energy system” and developing renewable energy.

        There are also separate “action plans” for the 2026-2030 period, such as for peaking carbon emissions

        China has pledged to peak its emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality before 2060.

        The new plan does not include any major new targets, instead consolidating and reaffirming existing policies.

        Nevertheless, it includes significant signals on key policy areas, such as non-carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gases, global climate governance and carbon markets.

        Below, Carbon Brief examines some of the notable elements in the latest five-year plan and what it reveals about China’s policy direction through to 2030.

        What does the climate plan cover?

        The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) released the plan in late July, in unison with 18 other government departments. These include the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, and the National Energy Administration.

        The document covers a range of topics, including CO2 emissions, other greenhouse gases (non-CO2 GHGs), carbon markets, carbon footprints, climate adaptation and international cooperation on climate change.

        For the first time at the five-year plan level, the plan creates a comprehensive target system covering all areas of climate policy, say officials in a MEE Q&A.

        They describe it as “the main policy instrument” for advancing China’s climate action during 2026-2030.

        China rarely issues high-level multi-year policies dedicated to “responding to climate change”. In 2014, the NDRC published a plan on the topic running through to 2020, but this was not linked to a five-year plan period.

        Qin Yan, principal analyst at ClearBlue Markets, tells Carbon Brief that the plan shows that China’s climate governance has reached “an unprecedented strategic level”.

        She adds that the plan creates an “all-encompassing target system” to support China’s Paris Agreement climate pledges for 2030 and 2035.

        In its 2030 pledge, China aimed to peak emissions “before 2030” and reduce carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – by more than 65% from 2005 levels.

        Last year, president Xi Jinping personally announced China’s 2035 pledge to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.

        The five-year plan marks a new phase in China’s climate policy, according to researchers at CIB Research, an economic research body affiliated with the Industrial Bank, whose largest shareholder is the Fujian provincial government.

        Their analysis adds that the plan represents a broad effort to strengthen China’s climate-governance system, implementation mechanisms and underlying capacity.

        Nevertheless, several headline targets and policies in the document simply reiterate already established plans.

        These include:

        • Cutting carbon intensity by 17% across the five years
        • Reducing carbon intensity per product in industries under China’s carbon market by 3%
        • Substituting fossil fuels with renewables
        • Strengthening climate adaptation
        • Supporting the “free flow” of cleantech

        What does the plan say about non-CO2 GHGs?

        The plan also goes into detail on China’s approach to non-CO2 GHGs. This includes reaffirming a target of an emissions “reduction capacity” from these gases totalling 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) by 2030, although the baseline is unclear.

        The target previously appeared in the overarching five-year plan, as well as the plan for building a “Beautiful China”.

        The goal refers to emissions reductions, which can be realised through implementing current non-CO2 emissions reduction policies and projects, says Chen Meian, programme director and senior analyst at the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress (iGDP). 

        She adds that it is “relatively achievable”, with sources including increasing the number of coal-mine methane utilisation projects.

        She points to an MEE explanatory note for a draft methodology under the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme, China’s voluntary carbon-credit market. Chen says the note suggests that projects using ventilation air methane and coal-mine methane with concentrations below 8% alone could deliver around 20MtCO2e of reduction by 2030.

        The note states that, currently, such projects are estimated to be able to “generate annual emission reductions of approximately 4.5MtCO2e”.

        In addition, Chen says, measures targeting industrial nitrous oxide (N2O) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) could help make up the remainder needed to meet the target.

        According to iGDP analysis of biennial reports submitted by China to the UNFCCC, China emitted around 14,000MtCO2e of GHGs in 2021, excluding land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).

        Non-CO2 GHGs accounted for around 2,700MtCO2e, or 19%, of the total, the majority of which was methane, as shown in the figure below.

        Methane is China’s main source of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions by gas, MtCO2e. Stacked bar chart from 2005 to 2021 showing total emissions rising to over 2,700 MtCO2e. Methane consistently accounts for the largest share, followed by Nitrous Oxide and F-gases. Source: iGDP analysis of China’s first Biennial Transparency Report and fourth Biennial Update Report - (alt text generated by Google Gemini)
        iGDP analysis of China’s first Biennial Transparency Report and fourth Biennial Update Report.

        China’s plans to curb these super-pollutants in the five-year period include coal-mine methane utilisation projects, end-of-pipe destruction technologies for HFCs and guidance on the use of catalysts to reduce N2O emissions.

        The plan also calls for the recovery and replacement of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) in power equipment.

        For Chen, the plan’s focus on SF6 control is particularly noteworthy. She says the gas is “finally receiving policy attention” and that proactive action is “timely and will help avoid future emissions growth” as China’s power system expands.

        What does the plan say about global climate governance?

        One of the plan’s clearest objectives for international cooperation is for China to play a more active role in global climate governance.

        By 2030, it says China should markedly increase its “influence, guiding power, shaping power and moral appeal” in this area.

        It says China’s climate action could also feed into the Global Governance Initiative, a policy initiative aimed at reforming the global governance system.

        China will also aim to “build a new narrative on climate governance”, it adds.

        Prof Thomas Hale, a professor in public policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, writes on LinkedIn that the plan “marks a major rhetorical shift” towards China being increasingly willing to “lead and shape” global climate action.

        Another clear focal point for international cooperation is in carbon markets.

        The plan calls for China to expand the global influence of its carbon market, such as through international rule-setting, cooperation on standards and by hosting the China Carbon Market Conference.

        Qin says China’s more active role in global carbon pricing is already evident in the launch of the open coalition on compliance carbon markets with the EU and Brazil. This coalition is expected to adopt a work plan at the China Carbon Market Conference in September.

        Qin also notes that China “could become the world’s largest [carbon] offset buyer” as its energy transition progresses.

        The country would, therefore, “benefit from helping shape global rules under the Article 6 framework [for carbon trading under the Paris Agreement]”, she adds.

        The post Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

        Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change?
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