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Carbon Brief handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
More funding for ‘green development’ on China’s ‘belt and road’
BIRTHDAY SPENDING: The third belt and road forum for international cooperation was held on 17-18 October, marking the 10th anniversary of China’s global infrastructure project, known as the belt and road initiative (BRI). At the forum, China’s president Xi Jinping announced an eight-point action plan to strengthen “high-quality” cooperation in the BRI, reported state news agency Xinhua, one of which was “promoting green development”. He pledged that China’s policy banks will “each set up a 350bn yuan ($47.8bn) financing window” to fund “small but beautiful” projects, reported Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post (SCMP), with “an additional 80bn yuan ($10.9bn) injected into the Silk Road Fund”.
‘GREEN DEVELOPMENT’: China will also organise “training for 100,000 people from developing countries” to advance “green development”, SCMP added. Other outcomes include development of “green investment standards” and “$97.2bn of deals across a handful of sectors including clean energy”, said Bloomberg. Xi also pledged to “deepen green infrastructure, energy and transport cooperation”, reported Xinhua, calling the forum “the most important diplomatic event hosted by China this year” and noting that representatives from more than 140 countries confirmed their attendance. Nikkei Asia, however, reported that fewer heads of state were present compared to the last BRI forum in 2019.
PARTY LINES: Ahead of the forum, China Daily published an article written by legal NGO ClientEarth stating that China’s “vision” for supporting the global energy transition “could be further clarified by setting timeframes for targets”. On the same day, the Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily said that China had “promoted green consensus among governments, enterprises and the public” in a Chinese-language article, while its English-language platform carried a commentary stating that the BRI “fully demonstrates the…appeal of open, green and clean cooperation”.
CLIMATE RISKS: Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center released a new report finding that the BRI brought significant benefits to host countries in the form of additional resources for development and “creation of a new model of south-south cooperation”. However, it said the BRI had “increased carbon dioxide emissions” by 245m tonnes per year from fossil-fuel power plant projects.
EU calls on China to join global methane and renewable goals
AMBITION CALL: EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson called on China to commit to global targets on cutting methane emissions and tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, during a three-day visit to Beijing, the South China Morning Post reported. She made the statement at an annual high-level energy dialogue, the first held in-person since 2019, the paper added. Simson “stopped short” of calling for higher ambitions on China’s carbon emissions, Reuters reported, adding that she also held talks with China’s National Energy Administration chief Zhang Jianhua. In a speech, Simson highlighted the significance of the EU-China “global collaboration in establishing a global energy system”, reported the state-supporting newspaper Global Times. It added that her visit to China came ahead of one by Josep Borell, EU foreign policy chief.
SUBSIDY PROBES: Simson’s visit came shortly after the EU had launched a probe into Chinese subsidies for electric car manufacturing, Reuters noted. Just days before her visit, the Financial Times said the EU was also considering whether to “investigate China’s use of subsidies to promote the country’s wind turbine manufacturers in the same way as electric vehicles”. European turbine makers have been “lobbying for more support” to
counter cheap Chinese imports that are pushing them “to the brink of collapse”, the paper added. Simson planned to decide on the wind subsidy probe after her visit, Recharge reported.
KERRY-XIE DIALOGUE: Meanwhile, the US and China have “quietly” continued behind-the-scenes climate talks, with climate envoys of both countries holding a video conference, reported Politico. During the call, Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for climate, and John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, discussed the “key topics for COP28”, reported the state-run newspaper China Daily. It added that they also discussed “practical cooperation” in areas outlined by two joint climate statements issued by the pair before and during COP26 in 2021.
China signals expansion of national carbon market
CARBON COUNTING: China’s ministry of ecology and the environment (MEE) released a policy document, republished by Chinese energy news outlet BJX News, that calls for companies in the chemical, petrochemical, construction materials, iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, papermaking and civil aviation industries to report and verify their greenhouse gas emissions. The text stated that regulators aim to “accelerate the construction of the national carbon emissions trading market…and standardise the management of greenhouse gas emissions data of enterprises in key industries”. Only enterprises with “annual greenhouse gas emissions of 26,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent” or above will be covered.
MARKET EXPANSION: Energy newspaper Jiemian explained that the release signals MEE has begun “basic work” on expanding the national carbon market to cover these sectors. [Since it was first established in 2021, the market has only covered heat and power generation.] Yan Qin, carbon analyst at data provider Refinitiv, highlighted a potential conflict with existing policy. The MEE release said green electricity certificates (GECs) “are not recognised as proof of zero emission electricity” and cannot be used on the national carbon market, contrary to a policy on GECs released by other regulators, Qin wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
CBAM INFLUENCE? Also writing on X, Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, pointed out that the inclusion of steel, cement and aluminium has a “clear connection to the EU’s carbon tariffs (CBAM)” as the sectors included in the policy “correspond exactly with the coverage of the CBAM”. He added that “this means…that the CBAM is working exactly as it’s supposed to – pushing other economies to catch up with the EU”.
China hit with 308bn yuan bill for extremes in 2023
TYPHOON KOINU: On 8 October, typhoon Koinu turned south off China’s coast and headed for Hainan island after battering Taiwan with rain and wind, Reuters reported. China’s ministry of water resources issued a “flood scenario report”, warning of heavy rainfall that could overwhelm rivers in Fujian and Guangdong, according to Xinhua.
ECONOMIC LOSSES: The Chinese government said the country suffered 308bn yuan ($42bn) of economic losses from extreme weather such as torrential rains, landslides, hailstorms and typhoons between January and September 2023, Reuters reported. These events left hundreds of people dead, with more than 89 million people and 10m hectares of crops affected, the outlet added. Separately, CGTN said Chinese experts predict global warming may “intensify Mei-yu” season, “a rainy weather phenomenon” in the Yangtze river valley every summer affecting agriculture, economy and people’s lives. Nature published an article quoting economist Jun Rentschler from the World Bank, who said that developers often build settlements on “flood-prone” areas despite knowing about the increasing risk of climate change. Architect Yu Kongjian, who coined the “sponge city” concept, also found 70% of China’s new developments between 1980 and 2010 were in flood plains, the outlet added.
‘BOILING’ CITIES: A report by Sixth Tone revealed how Chinese cities have experienced prolonged periods of higher temperatures over the past 60 years, adding that there has been a correlation between warming and increased heavy rainfall. The outlet said “boiling” is more fitting to describe the “severity of the extreme heat” that Chinese cities endure.
Spotlight
How is China thinking about the just transition as coal jobs decline?
New analysis has found that more than half a million Chinese coal miners could lose their jobs by 2050. In this issue, Carbon Brief explores if and how China’s energy transition could mitigate these job losses – and how that calculus affects local government planning.
How many people work in China’s coal industry?
A new report from thinktank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) estimates that China’s coal industry currently employs more than 1.5 million workers.
This is down from the last official census, conducted in 2018, which counted 3.5 million employees in coal mining and “washing”. (Other estimates put current jobs at 2.6 million.)
Coal job losses are not a new phenomenon in China, with China Dialogue noting that more than 5 million people worked in the industry in 2013. It found that during the “golden decade” of coal between 2004 and 2013, efficiency improvements more than halved the average number of employees per 10,000 tonnes of coal produced.
The colossal scale of the Chinese coal industry was powered by a combination of policies that incentivised rapid expansion, allowing it to gain significant political influence.
In Shanxi, for example, it contributed 29% of the province’s GDP and 46% of tax revenues in 2018, as well as creating significant numbers of jobs.
However, the new analysis by GEM estimates that China could lose more than 500,000 additional coal jobs by 2050, of which more than 240,000 will be in Shanxi alone.
“As China aims to reduce the number of coal mines…it becomes increasingly urgent for the government to…support a just transition in the coal industry,” Dorothy Mei, a co-author of the report, told Caixin.
Alex Clark, PhD researcher at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief that coal jobs would be lost even if some local decision-makers prioritise coal expansion and economic growth over decarbonisation.
How have coal job losses affected workers so far?
The challenges facing laid-off coal workers can be seen in the city of Fuxin, once home to Asia’s largest open cast mine. The area was hit by a spate of mine closures in the 2000s.
A photo essay published in 2017 found that former miners in Fuxin found it hard to gain new employment and preferred to give the compensation they received for the closures to their children.
There are “many middle-aged people with little to do”, it added, given the lack of other major employers in the area.
Moving coal workers to other sectors can be challenging, Tim Wright, former professor at the University of Sheffield, wrote, since they are typically older, better paid and based in more remote locations than other low-skilled workers.
NPR reported on a similar decision to close a mine in the northern town of Dalianhe, which led to the loss of 4,000 jobs and wiped out “the town’s main source of revenue”. The mine operator later confirmed its “bold” decision, despite worker protests.
Are coal job losses being replaced by new low-carbon industries?
Although China’s policymakers do not use the term “just transition”, Mengye Zhu, assistant research professor at the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability (CGS), told Carbon Brief that “does not mean that unemployment is not an important issue”.
In 2016, the central government established a 100bn yuan ($13.7bn) fund to relocate laid-off workers to other sectors. Zhu also pointed to the important function of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as stable providers of employment.
Meanwhile, local governments are trying to replace coal with low-carbon industry growth. For example, the Fuxin local government invested 600bn yuan ($82bn) in low-carbon energy expansion, which has “created over 5,500 jobs in the region”.
Cambridge Econometrics, expanding on a guest post written for Carbon Brief, calculated that there could be a net creation of 5 million jobs by China’s energy transition nationwide.
But the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada found that energy transition projects generally have “little interest in centring affected workers and their communities”.
Furthermore, simply moving coal workers into the wind sector, as in Fuxin, may not be replicated with further coal job losses. The Global Wind Energy Council estimated that to meet its wind power targets, China only needs 7,000 additional jobs by 2027.
Zhu stated that, while wind and solar manufacturing could drive job creation, operating the average wind or solar farm needed only 30 employees, compared to around 100 for a 100-200 megawatt coal power plant.
She observed that local governments sometimes resist transition policies “because wind farms employ fewer people than coal”.
Nevertheless, she said, according to unpublished research by CGS, provinces including Yunnan, Gansu, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Sichuan will still gain jobs from the energy transition.
Watch, read, listen
BRI REVIEW: The Environment China podcast featured a discussion with Griffith Asia Institute director Prof Christoph Nedopil-Wang on the effectiveness of the BRI’s shift to focus on low-carbon projects,.
RESOURCE INTENSITY: Newsletter The East is Read translated a speech by Peking University’s Prof Huang Jikun, who argued that “with green development high on the agenda, China’s economic growth needs to shift away from heavy reliance on excessive inputs of resources”.
ASIA GEOPOLITICS: The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies discussed the impact of energy geopolitics on China’s relations with other Asian nations with Muyi Yang, associate director at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Mohua Mukherjee, OIES senior research fellow.
MANAGING COOPERATION: Journalist and Institute for Human Sciences rector Misha Glenny interviewed China Dialogue founder Isabel Hilton on Chinese politics, competition between China and the west, the need for climate cooperation, the BRI and more.
New science
Researchers have found that the karst areas of southwest China have a greater carbon sequestration potential. Using the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford Approach (CASA) model, they calculated that the development of carbon sinks in the karst areas, enhanced by ecological restoration projects, are more effective at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the broader region. 58.5% of carbon sinks across the karst area exhibited either “increasing trends” in net carbon sequestration or “positive reversals”, which is larger than the overall average of 45.1% for Southwest China.
Emergent constrained projections of mean and extreme warming in China
Geophysical Research Letters
A new study found that its own calculations for 2080–2099 temperatures in China are lower than “raw projections” under the intermediate-emission scenario developed through Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models. It used an “emergent constraint” framework to obtain constrained average and daily maximum temperature warming figures. This implies that the impact of extreme heat could be lower than that suggested by current raw CMIP6 projections, the study said.
China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org.
The post China Briefing 19 October: BRI funding; coal job losses; extreme weather damage appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 19 October: BRI funding; coal job losses; extreme weather damage
Özgür Özel is the leader of Turkey’s main opposition “New Party” and a member of parliament from Manisa.
The world is running out of time to deliver on the Paris Agreement. The UN Environment Programme’s latest Emissions Gap Report concludes that the chance of keeping warming below 1.5C without overshooting it is gone. Even if every country delivers its current national pledges, the planet is heading for about 2.6C of warming this century.
This is the backdrop as governments and their leaders gather in Antalya for COP31, ten years after the Paris Agreement took effect. Turkey lies in the Mediterranean, one of the regions most exposed to climate change, and hosting the summit is a real opportunity.
It is also a responsibility, and that responsibility begins at home. The world does not lack targets. What it has lacked – almost everywhere – is delivery. If Antalya is remembered for anything, it should be for shifting the focus from what countries promise to what they actually do.
For many people in Turkey, the climate crisis is already part of daily life. In 2021, forests in Manavgat, a district of Antalya, burned for more than a week. Last year, wildfires forced more than 50,000 people from their homes around the western coast city of Izmir. This October, Istanbul had its heaviest rainfall in more than 80 years, with the floods killing at least eight people.
COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?
Electrification, the fossil fuel transition, adaptation to rising impacts, climate science and trade are key themes as governments gather for COP31 in TürkiyeBrazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable
The COP30 presidency’s voluntary timetable asks countries to plan first, then build up clean energy – only turning to oil and gas supplies from 2031
Measurable outcomes
Two weeks of climate negotiations cannot deliver everything that is needed to resolve the crisis, but COP31 can push for a few things that can be measured. The first is a voluntary fossil-fuel transition roadmap, with national milestones for 2030 and 2035 reported in the same format every year.
The second is a stronger commitment to protecting forests, with progress tracked over time. The third is yearly reporting on progress towards the agreed $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance by 2035, backed by a financial roadmap.
On adaptation, the indicators agreed in Belém should become funded national plans. By COP32, we should be able to see how many countries have an adaptation plan and the financial commitment behind each one.
Regional resilience partnership
The summit also has an unusual shape. Turkey hosts, Australia leads the negotiations, and the Pacific island nations play a central role. Climate diplomacy now sits at the centre of energy security, trade and development, and Turkey, which bridges developed and developing economies, is well placed to help build consensus between them. The lasting value of its presidency will depend on the practical partnerships it leaves behind.
One such partnership could connect two very different regions. On a map, the Mediterranean and the Pacific seem to have little in common, but their problems look similar: eroding coastlines, salt creeping into aquifers, failing harvests, fishing towns with fewer fish.
Turkey and Australia could launch a Mediterranean–Pacific Climate Resilience Partnership, linking coastal cities, scientists, institutions including development banks and island governments. It does not need a new bureaucracy. It can start with a few projects: shared satellite data and early-warning systems, better coastal flood defences, and trials of water-saving farming in the communities most at risk. What matters is visible results on the ground, not a ceremony.
Turkey’s track record
Turkey does have progress to point to. It has committed to net zero by 2053, and its solar and wind capacity has grown fast. The sunshine, the wind and the industrial base are all there. But the long-term direction of the energy mix is still unclear.
Turkey also signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use at COP26, pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. With four years left, COP31 is a chance to show how that promise will be kept.
COP30 roadmap says faster use of existing tools can halt forest loss by 2030
And while the summit celebrates zero waste, Turkey took in more than half a million tons of European plastic waste last year, much of it bound for Mersin and Adana. On November 21, the day after COP31 closes, an EU ban on plastic-waste exports to non-OECD countries takes effect. Turkey, as an OECD member, is exempt. That should worry us more than it seems to.
None of this will carry much weight unless Turkey’s own record holds up. A leadership at odds with its own environment and its own citizens will struggle to inspire global confidence in its commitment to protecting the planet.
Threat to local climate action
Cities are where adaptation happens. Water, flood protection, waste and urban planning fall largely to municipalities. That is why the imprisonment and removal of more than 50 elected opposition mayors, including the mayor of Istanbul, matter for environment and climate policy, as well as for democracy.
When local leadership is disrupted, investment plans stall and work on flood defences and water supplies loses continuity. As a result, local governments are left paralysed.
Comment: From Australia to Chile, our cities are driving a green investment boom
Inconsistent policymaking when it comes to the environment and climate deepens the problem in Turkey as it does in other countries. A few practical steps would make a real difference.
Set out a gradual, well-planned energy transition. Stop new construction in streambeds and drinking-water basins and put zoning maps online. Inspect every imported plastic shipment and cap total imports. Hold public hearings on environmental impact assessments before permits are issued, not after. And publish an independently audited climate scorecard each year covering emissions, renewables capacity, forest loss and adaptation spending.
This could set an example beyond Turkey. Many emerging economies are trying to cut emissions while protecting jobs and keeping industry competitive. Digital tools and artificial intelligence are already available to help forecast wildfire risk, reduce grid losses and track water use.
With the 1.5C limit now set to be breached, Antalya’s success will be measured by the greenhouse gases avoided, the investments delivered and the forests still standing in the years that follow. It is our responsibility to watch closely and see whether those commitments are delivered, transparently and in line with international standards.
The post Turkey must make COP31 a turning point for global climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.
Turkey must make COP31 a turning point for global climate action
As oil companies pull out of Argentina’s oil heartland in the Patagonian province of Chubut, workers and communities are struggling to secure their future, with little say in the decisions being made about it.
“The impacted are fragmented, the exploiters organised,” said José Glinski, a member of parliament from the province.
In Comodoro Rivadavia, where Argentina’s oil industry began in 1907, those words carry particular weight. For nearly 120 years, oil has shaped the city’s economy and that of Chubut province, which helped power Argentina for decades. Now the companies that built their fortunes there are shifting their investments elsewhere, threatening an economy that has depended on oil for generations.
Argentina’s national oil company, YPF, whose roots lie in Comodoro Rivadavia, is selling off its mature oilfields in the region to concentrate investment in the shale oil and gas reserves of Vaca Muerta, further north. According to Glinski, around 10,000 direct jobs have gone in Chubut, and unemployment has climbed from 2% to 10% in a single year.
“And this while all remaining companies have kept extremely high levels of profit,” he said.
COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?
Glinski blames government policy as much as the companies. “Companies are choosing to leave and the government lets them do so, while weakening tax and environmental regulations, leaving the city without the necessary income to organise the transition.”
Nobody has yet worked out who will clean up the old fields and more than 6,000 wells, look after the workers who remain, or pay for whatever comes next.
Comodoro Rivadavia is not alone. From Mejillones and Tocopilla in Chile to La Guajira in Colombia and Appalachia in the United States, from Scotland to Mpumalanga in South Africa and East Kalimantan in Indonesia, places built around fossil fuels for generations face some version of the same problem. As investment moves elsewhere, plans to protect workers, support communities and repair damaged land often lag far behind, if they exist at all.
Building an economy beyond fossil fuels
In Comodoro, as locals call the city, the community has not been passively waiting for oil to run out.
“We have looked into multiple alternatives for the territory, including building on geothermal capacity, an agricultural programme that could reinforce food security and focus on cultures that are not too water dependent, and exploring also aquaculture built on local species,” explained Ruben Zárate, who heads Comodoro Conocimiento, a public agency created by the municipality to develop economic opportunities. “The only alternative is economic diversification.”
But having ideas is one thing. Finding the money and securing the political support to put them into practice is another. In many countries, decisions that shape a region’s economy are made in the capital or in company boardrooms, and local authorities have little say, and few resources, when a major employer pulls out.
Glinski points to deals struck at the national level that leave communities without a meaningful say in decisions affecting their future.
“Some of the barriers relate to the absence of regulation of private actors which have negotiated conditions at the national level that prevent provinces or territories from capturing benefits that could be useful to fund the transition,” he said. “Comodoro had no voice in these deals.”
One example is Argentina’s Large Investment Incentive Regime, known as RIGI, which offers substantial tax benefits and regulatory guarantees to major investors. Argentina’s Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) has warned that this regime could also give large projects preferential access to water and energy at the expense of local communities and businesses, making it harder for regions to diversify their economies.
At root, it’s a question of power: who controls the money and the decisions, and whether the people who kept these industries running for generations have any control over what comes next.
“Comodoro, like most territories that developed around fossil fuels, is heavily dependent. Everyone knew the oil business would end, but none planned for it,” said Antonella Risso, a climate expert and community member. “Comodoro deserves a bright future. Its people have the capacity to chart a future for its next hundred years – a real Just Transition”.
What COP31 could do
Last year in Belém, governments agreed to develop a Just Transition Mechanism. At COP31 in Antalya they will negotiate how it should work, and civil society is pushing for a strong Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) that can help channel resources for action on the ground.
Camila Mercure, a climate policy officer with FARN and a coordinator of CAN’s Just Transition working group, said, “For a city like Comodoro Rivadavia, the BAM could mean support to develop diversification plans, assess viable alternatives, and access public, grant-based finance to put them into practice.”
“Workers and communities must have a meaningful role in shaping these plans, building on local knowledge and priorities. The aim should be to create decent livelihoods beyond fossil fuels and avoid alternatives that reproduce the same economic dependence, inequalities and environmental harm,” she said.
Why COP31 needs to start talking about just transition finance
The BAM could also put regions in touch with each other. Officials in Patagonia, northern Chile, Mpumalanga or East Kalimantan are wrestling with many of the same questions, and sharing what has worked would spare them from starting from scratch.
Then there are the companies. Fossil fuel producers should not be able to walk away from their workers, their environmental obligations and the towns that depended on them. The BAM could help regions share experiences and develop ways to hold companies accountable, ensuring they plan ahead and pay their fair s