China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024 in the first quarterly fall since the country re-opened from its “zero-Covid” lockdowns in December 2022.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows China remains on track for a decline in annual emissions this year.
This annual outlook depends on electricity demand growth easing in the second half of the year, as expected in projections from sector group the China Electricity Council.
However, if the latest trends in energy demand and supply continue – in particular, if demand growth continues to exceed pre-Covid trends – then emissions would stay flat in 2024 overall.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
- China’s energy demand grew by 4.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024. This is slower than the growth seen in 2023 and in the first quarter of this year, but is still much higher than the pre-Covid trend.
- CO2 emissions from energy use and cement production fell by 1% in the second quarter. When combined with a sharp 6.5% increase in January-February and a monthly decline in March, there was a 1.3% rise in CO2 emissions across the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2023.
- Electricity generation from wind and solar grew by 171 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half of the year, more than the total power output of the UK in the same period of 2023.
- China’s carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – only improved by 5.5%, well short of the 7% needed to meet the country’s intensity target for 2025.
- This was despite a one-off boost from China’s hydropower fleet recovering from drought.
- Compared with a year earlier, the increase in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on China’s roads cut demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.
- Manufacturing solar panels, EVs and batteries was only responsible for 1.6% of China’s electricity consumption and 2.9% of its emissions in the first half of 2024.
A slew of recent policy developments, summarised below, hint at a renewed focus in Beijing on the country’s energy and climate targets.
Yet the precise timing and height of China’s CO2 emissions peak, as well as the pace of subsequent reductions, remain key uncertainties for global climate action.
First post-Covid fall in CO2
China’s CO2 emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024, the first quarterly fall since the country re-opened from zero-Covid, as shown in the figure below.
Within the overall total, power sector emissions fell by 3%, cement production fell by 7% and oil consumption by 3%.
The reduction in CO2 emissions was driven by the surge in clean energy additions, which is driving fossil fuel power into reverse. (See: Clean energy additions on track to top 2023 record.)
However, rapid energy demand growth in sectors such as coal-to-chemicals diluted the impact of changes in the electricity sector. (See: Rapid energy demand growth.)
Clean energy additions on track to top 2023 record
The additions of new clean power capacity in China have continued to boom this year.
China added 102 gigawatts (GW) of new solar and 26GW of wind in the first half of 2024, as shown in the figure below. Solar additions were up 31% and wind additions up 12% compared with the first half of last year, so China is on track to beat last year’s record installations.
As a result of the strong capacity growth – and despite poor wind conditions – solar and wind covered 52% of electricity demand growth in the first half of 2024 and 71% since March. (The fall in wind speeds can be seen from NASA MERRA-2 data averaged for all of China.)
Indeed, the increase in power generation from solar and wind reported by the National Energy Administration in the first half of the year, at 171 terawatt hours (TWh), exceeded the UK’s total electricity supply of 160TWh in the first half of 2023.
Rapid demand growth in January–February, at 11%, had outpaced even the clean energy additions. But combined with a rebound in hydropower generation, the increase in non-fossil electricity supply exceeded power demand growth in the March to June period.
These shifts are shown in the figure below, illustrating how clean power expansion started to exceed electricity demand growth in recent months, pushing coal and gas power into reverse.
After stopping the publication of capacity utilisation data by technology in May, the National Energy Administration released data in July on power generation by technology for renewable sources – solar, wind, hydro and biomass.
The NEA’s data shows renewable electricity generation covering 35% of demand in the first half of 2024 and growing 22% year-on-year. This is much higher than the previously-published National Bureau of Statistics numbers – which under-report wind and particularly solar power generation – but is closely aligned with estimates previously published by Carbon Brief.
In terms of other clean energy technologies, the production of electric vehicles, batteries and solar cells – the so-called “new-three” due to their recently acquired economic significance – continued to grow strongly in the first half of the year, at 34%, 18% and 37%, respectively.
This growth in production indicates strong demand from China and overseas. The growth of solar cell production halted in June, however.
Rapid energy demand growth
While clean technologies continue to surge in China, energy consumption has also continued to grow at a fast rate relative to GDP. This indicates that the energy-intensive growth pattern that China followed during zero-Covid is continuing.
In the second quarter of 2024, total energy consumption increased by 4.2%, while GDP grew by 4.7%, marking an energy intensity gain of only 0.5%. This energy demand growth is much faster than the pre-Covid trend.
China’s target is an annual improvement of 2.9%, a rate that was exceeded consistently until Covid-era economic policies shifted the country’s growth pattern. Economic growth during and after zero-Covid has been reliant on energy-intensive manufacturing industries.
The main structural drivers of recent energy consumption growth were the coal-to-chemicals industry, and industrial demand for power and gas.
The coal-to-chemicals industry produces petrochemical products from coal instead of oil, supporting China’s energy security goals but at a great cost to climate goals, as the coal-based production processes have far higher carbon footprints.
China’s energy security drive and falling coal prices relative to oil prices have driven a boom in this industry. When coal supply was tight in 2022–23, the government was controlling coal use by the chemical industry to increase supply to power plants. As the coal supply situation has eased in 2024, this has enabled coal-to-chemicals plants to increase production, with coal consumption in the chemical industry growing 21% in the first half of the year.
Gas consumption increased 8.7% in the first half of the year, with industrial and residential gas consumption rising strongly, even as power generation from gas fell. Residential demand was driven up by extreme cold in the winter, however, rather than by structural factors.
On the flipside, the demand for oil products continued to fall, with a 3% drop in the second quarter that accelerated in the summer.
There are multiple factors driving the reduction: the shift to electric vehicles is contributing to the drop, with the share of EVs in cumulative vehicle sales over the past 10 years – an indicator of the mix of vehicles on the road – reaching 11.5% in June, up from 7.7% a year ago. This means that the increase in EVs cut the demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.
The ongoing contraction in construction volumes, which is apparent in the fall in cement production, also affects oil demand, as the construction sector is a major source of demand for oil products for freight and machinery.
Another key driver is weak demand for oil as a petrochemical feedstock, which the rapidly increasing coal-to-chemicals production attempts to displace with the use of coal, albeit at a cost of increased CO2 emissions.
The contraction in construction volumes, caused by a slowdown in real estate that began in 2021, is weighing on the demand for cement and steel. Besides the direct effect of less real estate construction, local government revenues are dragged down by a fall in land sales, affecting their ability to spend on infrastructure construction.
These changes in demand for energy can been seen in the figure below, which shows contributions to the change in China’s CO2 emissions in the second quarter of this year.
While CO2 emissions did fall in the second quarter, the rate of CO2 intensity improvements fell short of the level needed to meet China’s 2025 carbon intensity commitment.
The country’s goal is to reduce emissions relative to GDP by 18% from 2020 to 2025, with progress until 2023 falling far short of the target.
As reported GDP growth slowed to 4.7% in the second quarter, and CO2 emissions fell by 1%, CO2 intensity improved by 5.5%, short of the 7% annual improvement needed in 2024-25 to get back on track.
Improvements are also easier to achieve this year than they will be in 2025, as the rebound of hydropower from the low availability in 2022–23 helps reduce emissions. This is a one-off tailwind that is not likely to be present in 2025.
One part of the energy-intensive industry that China has been relying on to drive economic growth is the manufacturing of clean energy technologies. In response, some commentators have exaggerated the CO2 impact of Chinese factories making solar panels, EVs and batteries.
In reality, however, the manufacturing of these goods was responsible for 1.6% of China’s electricity consumption and 2.9% of its emissions in the first half of 2024, based on calculations using publicly available data.
The same calculations show that their CO2 emissions and electricity consumption increased by approximately 27% in the same period, contributing a 0.6% increase in China’s total fossil CO2 emissions and 0.4% increase in electricity consumption.
Looking ahead to the rest of this year, energy consumption growth is expected to cool. The China Electricity Council projects electricity demand growth of 5% in the second half of the year, compared with 8.1% in the first half, and the National Energy Administration expects full-year gas demand growth to moderate to 6.5–7.7%, from 8.7% in the first half.
If these projections are accurate, then the continued growth of clean energy consumption would be sufficient to push China’s CO2 emissions into decline this year.
However, the faster-than-expected energy demand growth in the first half of the year dilutes the emission reductions from the country’s record clean energy additions, and adds uncertainty to whether China’s emissions will indeed fall in 2024 compared with 2023.
If the growth rates of energy demand, by fuel and sector, seen in the second quarter of this year continue into the third and fourth quarter, with similar continuity in the growth rates of non-fossil electricity generation, then China’s emissions would stay flat in 2024 overall.
Recent policy developments
Energy consumption growth could also be moderated by a renewed policy focus on energy and climate targets. In May of this year, the State Council, China’s top administrative body, issued an action plan on energy conservation and CO2 emission reductions in 2024–25.
This plan is notable both for the unusual time period, covering the last two years of the five-year plan period, and for its high-level nature – energy conservation would normally fall under the jurisdiction of the energy and environmental regulators, rather than the State Council.
This suggests that the government recognises the shortfall against the 2025 carbon intensity and energy intensity targets. The action plan calls for meeting both of these targets, and lists numerous measures to be undertaken in response.
Yet the plan did not set numerical targets for 2024 that would be consistent with meeting the 2025 targets, which could be seen as taking a hedged approach of pushing for more action but not guaranteeing that sufficient results will be achieved.
Another State Council plan, released in late July, calls for speeding up the creation of a “dual control system” to control total CO2 emissions and emissions intensity. (Historically, China has never set numerical targets for total CO2 emissions, only aiming to limit CO2 intensity.)
According to the July release, the 15th five-year plan will set a binding carbon intensity target in the 2026-30 period, in line with previous five-year plans. For the first time, there will also be a non-binding, “supplementary” target for China’s absolute emissions level in 2030. Then, for each of the following five-year periods, there will be a binding absolute emissions target.
After the shortfall against the 2025 intensity target, the 15th five-year plan period would need to set a demanding intensity target to fulfil China’s 2030 commitments under the Paris Agreement.
The most important political meeting of the year, the “third plenum” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, took place in July. The readout of the meeting mentioned carbon emissions reduction for the first time, but did not signal a shift to stimulating consumption. This could have driven less emissions-intensive economic growth, reducing reliance on higher-carbon manufacturing or infrastructure expansion.
The key focus of the meeting was promoting “new quality productive forces”, meaning advanced manufacturing and innovation. In practice, this likely implies a continued emphasis on manufacturing, with the potential for the energy-intensive economic growth pattern to continue.
Another indication that carbon emissions are receiving more policy emphasis is that the government appears to have stopped permitting new coal-based steelmaking projects since the beginning of 2024.
Hundreds of coal-based “replacement” projects were permitted in previous years, preparing to replace up to 40% of China’s existing steelmaking capacity with brand-new furnaces.
The shift away from new coal-based capacity is consistent with China’s target of increasing the use of electric arc furnaces – but progress towards that target had been lagging.
On coal-fired power, the government issued a new policy on “low-carbon transformation” of coal plants, aiming to initiate “low-carbon” retrofitting projects of a batch of coal power plants in 2025, with the target of reducing the CO2 emissions of those plants 20% below the average for similar plants in 2023, and another batch in 2027 aiming for emission levels 50% below 2023 average.
Under this transformation plan, emissions reductions at targeted coal plants are supposed to be achieved by “co-firing” coal with either biomass or “green” ammonia derived from renewables-based hydrogen, or by adding carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).
However, there are no targets for how many coal plants should be retrofitted, or what the incentives will be to do that, which will obviously determine the direct impact of this policy.
The impact could be small as biomass supply is limited, while the costs of ammonia and CCUS are high. For example, the International Energy Agency – among the more optimistic on power generation from biomass – sees its share rising from 2% in 2022 to 4.5% in 2035, if China meets its pledges on energy and climate IEA’s.
Furthermore, much of China’s coal-fired generation is already unprofitable, with almost half of the firms in the sector operating at a loss – even before taking on costly new measures.
The policy does however constitute Beijing’s first attempt at reconciling the recent permitting spree of new coal-fired power plants with its CO2 peaking goal for 2030, and looking for alternatives to early closure or under-utilisation of at least a part of the coal power fleet.
Prospects for a 2023 emissions peak and beyond
China’s emissions fell year-on-year in March and in the second quarter, as expected in my analysis for Carbon Brief last year.
Faster-than-expected growth in coal demand for the chemical industry, however, as well as industrial demand for power and gas, has diluted the emission reductions from the power sector, making the fall in emissions smaller than expected.
Nevertheless, China is likely still on track to begin a structural decline in emissions in 2024, making 2023 the peak year for CO2 emissions.
In order for this projection to bear out in reality, clean energy growth would need to continue and the expected cooling in energy demand growth in the second half of the year would need to materialise, with the new policy focus on energy savings and carbon emissions proving lasting.
The trends that could upset this projection include the economic policy focus on manufacturing, and the expansion of the coal-to-chemicals industry.
The surge in coal use for coal-to-chemicals is also a demonstration that even if power sector emissions begin to fall, as long as China’s climate commitments allow emissions to increase, there is the potential for developments that increase emissions in other sectors.
China has committed to updating its climate targets for 2030 and releasing new targets for 2035 early next year. These targets will be key in cementing the emissions peak and specifying the targeted rate of emission reductions after the peak – both of which have seismic implications for the global emissions trajectory and the level at which temperatures can be stabilised.
About the data
Data for the analysis was compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Energy Administration of China, China Electricity Council and China Customs official data releases, and from WIND Information, an industry data provider.
Wind and solar output, and thermal power breakdown by fuel, was calculated by multiplying power generating capacity at the end of each month by monthly utilisation, using data reported by China Electricity Council through Wind Financial Terminal.
Total generation from thermal power and generation from hydropower and nuclear power was taken from National Bureau of Statistics monthly releases.
Monthly utilisation data was not available for biomass, so the annual average of 52% for 2023 was applied. Power sector coal consumption was estimated based on power generation from coal and the average heat rate of coal-fired power plants during each month, to avoid the issue with official coal consumption numbers affecting recent data.
When data was available from multiple sources, different sources were cross-referenced and official sources used when possible, adjusting total consumption to match the consumption growth and changes in the energy mix reported by the National Bureau of Statistics for the first quarter and the first half of the year. The effect of the adjustments is less than 1% for all energy sources, and the conclusion that emissions fell in the second quarter holds both with and without this adjustment.
CO2 emissions estimates are based on National Bureau of Statistics default calorific values of fuels and emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, for the year 2018. Cement CO2 emissions factor is based on annual estimates up to 2023.
For oil consumption, apparent consumption is calculated from refinery throughput, with net exports of oil products subtracted.
The post Analysis: China’s CO2 falls 1% in Q2 2024 in first quarterly drop since Covid-19 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: China’s CO2 falls 1% in Q2 2024 in first quarterly drop since Covid-19
Mohamed Adow is the founder and director of Power Shift Africa.
What does it mean to ask a continent to adapt to a crisis it did little to create? For Africa, that question has stopped being philosophical as it is answered every day in flooded communities, failed harvests, disappearing livelihoods and public budgets stretched by disasters they cannot afford.
Africa produces a negligible share of global emissions, but between 1970 and 2021 it accounted for around 35% of climate-related deaths worldwide. The continent is therefore confronting a brutal contradiction that is exemplified by the fact that those who have contributed least to the climate crisis are carrying some of its heaviest costs.
And that explains why, for us, it is worrying that much of the climate debate treats adaptation as a technical exercise. Build better infrastructure, they say. Improve early-warning systems, they urge. Develop drought-resistant crops, they preach. Strengthen disaster preparedness, they yell. All of these things matter, but they do not answer the harder question of why some people and countries are so much more vulnerable in the first place.
At pre-COP, UN climate chief warns of heat threat to mothers and babies
That is the question we have spent the last couple of years trying to answer, and it culminates in our recently launched thought-provoking report that shows how Africa’s vulnerability is not an accident of geography, but has instead been shaped by history, economics and power.
Colonial extraction, unequal development, debt dependency, global economic asymmetries and exclusion from international decision-making have all constrained the resources and choices available to African countries, and climate change is intensifying those existing inequalities, shows the report, titled “A Just Transition for Adaptation: A Framework and Vision for Africa”.
Widening adaptation finance gap
I say it is ‘thought-provoking’ because it asks us to rethink adaptation itself – not as a collection of projects designed to help people cope with climate impacts, but as a question of justice, power and structural change.
That distinction might not sit well with some people, but for Africa it matters, because there is a danger in asking vulnerable countries simply to become more “resilient”. Resilient against what? How can you ask people to toughen up while letting them be strangled by a system that continues to reproduce the very inequalities that have made resilience so difficult?
If you want to know where the problem is, see where the money is coming from and where it is going. That becomes quite stark when you consider the fact that Africa’s annual adaptation needs are close to $70 billion but its adaptation finance flows are only around $14 billion.
Editor’s Desk: Nepal’s disaster has laid bare the world’s adaptation accountability gap
At the same time, a growing proportion of climate finance is being delivered through commercial loans rather than grants. That means countries already under severe fiscal pressure are being asked to borrow to protect themselves from climate impacts they did little to cause.
There is something deeply wrong with a system in which climate-vulnerable countries are spending more of their own public money on adaptation than they receive in international support, because that system turns climate injustice into a financial transaction, with those least responsible carrying more of the cost.
From extractivism to African ownership
And, as the new report shows, the problem goes beyond finance. Africa’s land, minerals, forests and other resources have become central to the global transition towards lower-carbon economies. Markets and green industrial projects may offer genuine opportunities, but without African ownership, participation and accountability, there is a risk that old patterns of extraction will simply be repackaged in the language of the green economy, and that is why we argue that a transition can be low-carbon and still be unjust.
It is precisely because of this risk that the report’s idea of a just transition for adaptation becomes important as it expands the idea beyond the familiar focus on emissions and energy systems. It asks what justice looks like when the goal is not simply to reduce carbon, but to enable societies to withstand a changing climate without reproducing the inequalities that made them vulnerable.
The report places four dimensions of justice at the centre: recognition, participation, distribution and restoration.
From Belém to Antalya – gains, gaps and challenges for a new Just Transition Mechanism
Recognition means taking African realities and knowledge seriously. Indigenous and local knowledge has too often been treated as peripheral to “real” climate expertise, even though communities possess generations of detailed understanding of ecosystems, rainfall, soils, water and livelihoods. That knowledge should inform adaptation policy from the beginning, rather than being added after decisions have already been made.
Participation means giving affected communities a genuine voice in decisions about their land, resources and futures. Adaptation governance should be inclusive, democratic, rights-based and rooted in free, prior and informed consent.
Climate justice must confront unequal development
Meanwhile, distribution asks who actually receives adaptation finance, technology and protection? Money that is announced internationally but fails to reach vulnerable communities does little to change their reality.
And, finally, restoration recognises that present-day vulnerability has a history. Climate justice cannot begin and end with today’s emissions, but must also confront the structural conditions that have shaped unequal development and continue to limit African countries’ room to respond.
This report, therefore, is an invitation to change the terms of the conversation on just transition. Africa definitely needs adaptation, but that should not mean endlessly adjusting to an unjust system. The real goal should be something more ambitious; a transition in which resilience, development and justice reinforce one another, shaped by African priorities and grounded in African realities.
The post Africa should not have to adapt to an unjust climate system appeared first on Climate Home News.
Extreme heat poses a growing threat to pregnant women and their babies, both before and after birth, the UN climate chief said on Monday, calling it “a new faultline in the global climate crisis, and one which is potentially fatal”.
Speaking on the first day of the pre-COP31 meeting in Fiji, where new research was launched on the issue, Simon Stiell warned: “This faultline must not become another deep chasm of climate-driven suffering, inequality and injustice.”
Rather than being a time of hope, he added, pregnancy is becoming “a time of anxiety, as climate impacts fill everyday life with risk”, straining health systems and threatening essentials like food, water and power – especially in poorer countries where many women work outdoors and live in informal housing far from under-equipped clinics.
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What’s on the climate calendar for October 2026?
Brazilians are heading to the polls, diplomats are gathering in the Pacific for pre-COP, and it’s crunch time for the IPCC -
WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in
Amid warnings of “unprecedented” weather extremes this year, the World Health Organization urges governments to strengthen protections for vulnerable groups
In a new international survey of 1,000 maternal healthcare professionals in Australia, Brazil, India, the UK and Zimbabwe, around three-quarters reported an increase in heat-related cases or complications affecting pregnant women, as well as foetal and newborn health, over the past five years.
Nearly all respondents in the survey commissioned by Wellcome, a global charitable foundation, said they had cared for a pregnant woman or baby whose health they believed had been affected by extreme temperatures.
Researchers have linked heat exposure with preterm birth, low birth weight, stillbirth and maternal complications. For every 1 degree Celsius rise in heat exposure, the odds of preterm birth increase by around 5%, while exposure to heatwaves is associated with a 25% higher risk of obstetric complications.
“No woman should have to fear that extreme heat will harm the baby she is carrying,” said Julia Gillard, chair of Wellcome and former Australian prime minister, adding “pregnant women must not be invisible”.
Call to include mothers and midwives
Wellcome urged governments to include pregnant women, new mothers and babies in their national climate and health plans, with funded measures to protect them from extreme heat.
It also called on the World Health Organization to develop clinical guidance on heat, pregnancy and the postpartum period, alongside stronger data and surveillance on how heat exposure impacts maternal and newborn health.
The charity is backing a study in Zimbabwe and South Africa to test simple interventions such as handheld fans, reflective paint on health-facility roofs and community-led climate information systems.
Extreme heat costing India’s poorest workers 2% of GDP, survey finds
The International Confederation of Midwives, which represents over 2 million midwives, is also pushing for action, asking countries to include maternal healthcare professionals in their National Adaptation Plans, and provide finance to ensure clinics have access to reliable water, power and cooling.
Chief executive Anna af Ugglas told an event on adaptation at Climate Week NYC that midwives tire more easily when working in high heat, which can lead them to make errors. They are often first responders in a crisis – and yet “too many climate and emergency plans are still developed without them”, she added.
Pacific hosts Pre-COP
The campaign to put maternal health on the climate policy agenda kicked off the proceedings in Fiji, where ministers and other attendees from around 50 countries are gathering this week to advance discussions in the run-up to the COP31 climate summit in Antalya next month.
This year’s annual UN climate conference is taking place in Türkiye which holds the COP presidency, while Australia is in charge of the negotiations – a deal worked out after a long rivalry to host COP31.
Australia is using its role to spotlight the concerns of the Pacific region to which it belongs, where low-lying island nations are under threat from sea level rise.
On Tuesday, a group of 14 government leaders – mainly from the Pacific – plus heads of international organisations including the Green Climate Fund and the Asian Development Bank will visit climate resilience projects in neighbouring Tuvalu.
Key themes for the pre-COP – a glitzier event than usual – are keeping the 1.5C global warming limit within reach despite a projected overshoot, protecting oceans and improving access to finance for small island nations and the least-developed countries.
At a press conference on Monday, Australia’s climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen flagged his country’s investments in renewables, both in Pacific nations such as Vanuatu and at home, saying this would help lower the use of diesel, fossil gas and coal in energy supplies.
Ahead of the pre-COP, Australia has been criticised by climate campaigners and some Pacific leaders for greenlighting expanded coal production on its territory.
As COP31 co-host, Australia should make its polluters pay for climate damage
Asked about Australia’s ongoing support for fossil fuels, Fiji’s climate minister Lynda Tabuya said the issue had been raised by “certain countries” at a ministerial meeting on Monday.
“There will be things that we disagree on, but we can agree to disagree – and we’re just very grateful for the support of Australia and the commitment towards renewable energy, and I think that’s the direction that we need to take, especially in the Pacific,” she added.
The post At pre-COP, UN climate chief warns of heat threat to mothers and babies appeared first on Climate Home News.
At pre-COP, UN climate chief warns of heat threat to mothers and babies
Climate Change
‘Don’t waste this moment’: Pre-COP must back Pacific priorities; respond to the urgency of the climate crisis
NADI, FIJI Sunday 4 October 2026 — As leaders and delegates gather for the Pacific Pre-COP in Fiji and Tuvalu, Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling on the Australian government to uphold Pacific priorities on fossil fuels and climate finance, and respond to the urgency of the climate and energy crisis by accelerating the just transition away from fossil fuels.
The Pre-COP meeting in Fiji and atoll nation Tuvalu is an important milestone on the road to the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye, where Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will take the reins as President of Negotiations. But another coal mine approval in the days before the Pre-COP has left Pacific leaders and civil society exasperated at Australia’s perceived ‘double talk’ and overshadowed the start of talks.
Speaking from Nadi, Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“This week we must focus on why the Pre-COP is so important. We must listen to Pacific leaders and communities who are sick of Australia’s double talk on climate, and want to see the actions of the most polluting nations respond to the urgency and scale of the crisis we face.
“Every cyclone, every storm blows with the deadly force of accumulated emissions and gives a warning of what is to come. The Pacific must not become a sacrifice zone for major polluters and fossil fuel corporations.
“1.5°C remains the scientific, moral and legal temperature limit. The landmark Pacific-led ICJAO ruling is clear — continuing down the fossil fuel path, and failing to align efforts with limiting warming to 1.5°C, is a breach of our international legal obligations. Our communities, our cultures and our very existence are under threat.
“As Australia prepares to chair the upcoming COP31 talks in partnership with the Pacific, it must do much more to turn empty rhetoric into real action to end the fossil fuel chokehold.”
Also in Nadi, Dr Simon Bradshaw, COP31 Lead and climate expert at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “The Pacific Pre-COP is a critical milestone on the road to COP31. The Australian government must rise to the moment with concrete plans to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels, and respond to communities across the region facing soaring cost of living and the escalating impacts of the climate crisis.
“This week, the Australian government must deliver more than empty rhetoric. The Prime Minister’s recent keynote address at New York Climate Week acknowledged the urgency of the climate crisis, but failed to mention its cause, fossil fuels. Just last week we saw another new coal mine approval in Australia. This is on top of the 37 fossil fuel approvals by the Albanese Government since elected, despite recognising through the Belém Declaration that returning to 1.5°C is incompatible with new coal, oil and gas.
“At the Pre-COP, words must be matched with real action to phase out fossil fuels. We can not help decarbonise the world without action at home to halt fossil fuel approvals and phase out coal and gas exports. Don’t waste this important moment to back Pacific leadership and turn commitments into real action, including an immediate end to new fossil fuel approvals, and following other nations in developing a national roadmap away from fossil fuels.”
ENDS
Media contact: Kate O’Callaghan in Nadi on +61 406 231 892 (Whatsapp/Signal)
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