Local officials are often viewed as relatively weak actors in China’s governance structure, largely implementing policies issued from the central level.
However, a new book – “Implementing a low-carbon future: climate leadership in Chinese cities” – argues that these officials play an important role in designing innovative and enduring climate policy.
The book follows how four cities – Shenzhen, Zhenjiang, Xiamen and Nanchang – approached developing low-carbon policies over the course of almost a decade.
It identifies “bridge leaders” – mid-level local bureaucrats who have a strong interest in a specific policy area and who are unlikely to move often between different posts – as key to effective local climate policymaking.
Carbon Brief interviews author Weila Gong, non-resident scholar at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy’s 21st Century China Center and visiting scholar at UC Davis, on her research.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
- Gong on why cities are important: “Over 85% of China’s carbon emissions come from cities. The majority of Chinese people live in cities, so the extent to which cities can become truly low-carbon will also influence China’s climate success.”
- On what motivates local policymakers: “Mid-level bureaucrats need to think about how to create unique, innovative and visible policy actions to help draw attention to their region and their bosses.”
- On cities as a way to test new policies: “Part of the function of local governments in China is to experiment with policy at a local level, thereby helping national-level officials develop responses to emerging policy challenges.”
- On how local policymakers get results: “Even though we tend to think that local officials are very constrained in terms of policy or financial resources, they can often have the leverage and space to build coalitions.”
- On uneven city-level engagement: “To begin with, all regions received political support if they joined the [low-carbon city] pilot programme. But over the years, different regions have engaged very differently.”
- On the need for ‘entrepreneurial bureaucrats’: “China will always need local officials willing to introduce new legislations or try new policy instruments…For that, it needs entrepreneurial bureaucrats who are willing to turn ideas into actions.”
- On international cooperation: “Even with how geopolitics is really complicating things, many cities continue to have common challenges. For example, collaboration between Shanghai and Los Angeles on green shipping corridors is still ongoing”.
- On the effectiveness of mid-level bureaucrats: “They are creative, they know how to convince their boss about the importance of climate action and they know how that can bring opportunities for themselves and their boss. And because of how long they have worked in one area, they understand the local politics, policy processes and the coalitions needed to provide solutions.”
Carbon Brief: You’ve just written a book about climate policy in Chinese cities. Could you explain why subnational governments are important for China’s climate policy in general?
Weila Gong: China is the world’s largest carbon emitter, so the extent to which global efforts to address climate change can actually reach their goal is largely influenced by China’s efforts.
If you look at the structure of China’s carbon emissions, over 85% of China’s carbon emissions come from cities. The majority of Chinese people live in cities, so the extent to which cities can become truly low-carbon will also influence China’s climate success. That’s why I started to look at this research area.
We tend to think of China as a centralised, big system and a unitary state – state-run and top-down – but it actually also has multi-level governance. No climate action or national climate targets can be achieved without local engagement.
We also tend to think subnational level [actors], including the provincial, city and township levels, are barriers for environmental protection, because they are focused on promoting economic growth.
But I observed these actors participating in China’s low-carbon city pilot programme [as part of my fieldwork spanning most of the 2010s]. I was really surprised to see so many cities wanted to participate in the pilot, even though at the time there was no specific evaluation system that would reward their efforts.
We think of local governments just as implementers of central-level policy. When it comes to issues like climate change and also low-carbon development – in 2010 [policymakers found these concepts] very vague…So I was curious why those local officials would want to take on this issue, given that there was no immediate reward, either in terms of career development or in terms of increasing financial support from the central government.
CB: Could you help us understand the mindset of these bureaucrats? How do local-level officials design policies in China?
WG: The role of different local officials in promoting low-carbon policy is not very well understood. We tend to focus on top political figures, such as mayors or [municipal] party secretaries, because we see them as the most important policymakers.
But that is not entirely true. Those top local politicians are very important in supporting efforts to tackle problem areas…but the focus in my book is the mid-level bureaucrats.
Unlike mayors and party secretaries, mid-level officials tend to stay in one locality for their entire career. That helps us to understand why climate policy can become durable in some places and not others.
Mayors and party secretaries are important for [pushing through policy solutions to problem] issues, but they can also be key barriers for ensuring continuation of those policies – particularly when they change positions…as they tend to move to another locality every three to five years.
Therefore, these top-level officials are not the ones implementing low-carbon policies. That’s why I looked at the mid-level bureaucrats instead.
The conventional understanding of these bureaucrats is that they are obedient and only follow their bosses’ guidance. But actually, when low-carbon policies emerged as an important area for the central government in 2010, opportunities appeared for local governments to develop pilot projects.
Mid-level local officials saw this as a way to help their bosses – the mayors and party secretaries – increase their chances of getting promoted, which in turn would help the mid-level bureaucrats to advance their own career.
Impressing central government officials isn’t really a consideration for these officials…but their bosses need visible or more reliable local actions to show their ability to enforce low-carbon development.
As such, mid-level bureaucrats need to think about how to create unique, innovative and visible policy actions to help draw attention to their region and their bosses.
Secondly, mid-level bureaucrats are more interested in climate issues if it is in the interest of their agency or local government.
For example, Zhenjiang [a city in east China] came to be known as a leader in promoting low-carbon development due to a series of early institutional efforts to establish low-carbon development. In particular, in part because of this, it was chosen for a visit by president Xi Jinping in 2014.
As a result, the city created a specialised agency [on low-carbon development]. This made it one of the first regions to have full-time local officials that followed through on low-carbon policy implementation.
This increased their ability to declare their regulatory authority on low-carbon issues, by being able to promote new regulations, standards and so on, as well as enhancing the region’s and the local policymakers’ reputations by building institutions to ensure long-term enforcement.
Another motivation for many local governments is accessing finance through the pilot programmes. If their ideas impress the central-level government, local policymakers could get access to investment or other forms of financial resources from higher levels of government.
In the city of Nanchang, for example, officials were trying to negotiate access to external investment, because the main central government fund for low-carbon initiatives only provided minimal finance.
Nanchang officials tried to partner with the Austrian government on sustainable agriculture, working through China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
It didn’t materialise in the end, but they still created a platform to attract international investment, and gathered tens of millions of yuan [millions of dollars] in central-level support because the fact they showed they were innovating allowed them to access more money through China’s institutional channels.
CB: Could you give an example of what drives innovative local climate policies?
WG: National-level policies and pilot programme schemes provide openings for local governments to really think about how and whether they should engage more in addressing climate change.
The national government has participated in international negotiations on climate for decades…but subnational-level cities and provinces only joined national efforts to address climate issues from the 2010s – starting with the low-carbon city programme.
So we can see that local responses to addressing climate change have been shaped by the opportunities provided by the national government, [who in turn] want more local-level participation to give them successful case studies to take to international conferences.
Local carbon emission trading systems (ETSs) are an example of giving local governments opportunities to experiment.
In my book, I look at the case of Shenzhen, which launched China’s first local ETS. [Shenzhen was one of seven regions selected to run a pilot ETS, ahead of the national ETS being established in 2018.]
Part of the function of local governments in China is to experiment with policy at a local level, thereby helping national-level officials develop responses to emerging policy challenges.
I remember a moment during my field research in 2012, when I was with a group of officials from both the national and local government.
The national government officials asked the local officials to come up with some best practices and solutions, to help them envision what could be done at the national level.
Then there are drivers at the international level, which I think is very interesting.
I observed that the officials particularly willing to take on climate issues usually had access to international training.
During the early stages of subnational climate engagement, organisations such as the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) worked with the NDRC and other national-level agencies to train local officials across the country.
This created more opportunities to help local officials understand what climate change and carbon markets were, and how to use policy instruments to support low-carbon development.
In Shenzhen, local bureaucrats also turned to their international partners to help them design policy.
The city created a study group to visit partners working on the EU ETS and learn how it was designed. They learned about price volatility in the EU ETS and pushed legislation through the local people’s congress [to mitigate this in their own system].
One thing that made the Shenzhen ETS so successful is what I call “entrepreneurial bureaucrats” [who have the ability to design, push through and maintain new local-level climate policies].
Shenzhen’s vice mayor worked with the local people’s congress to push the ETS legislation through. This was the first piece of legislation in China to require compulsory participation by more than 600 local industrial actors. It also granted the local government authority to decide the quotas and scope of the ETS.
These 600 entities also included Shenzhen’s public building sector[, a powerful local interest group].
This shows that, even though we tend to think that local officials are very constrained in terms of policy or financial resources, they can often have the leverage and space to build coalitions – even in China’s more centralised political system – and know how to mobilise political support.
CB: You chose to look at the effectiveness of four cities – Shenzhen, Zhenjiang, Xiamen and Nanchang – in climate policymaking. Why did you choose these cities and how representative are they of the rest of China?
WG: We tend to believe that only economically-advanced areas or environmentally-friendly cities will become champions for low-carbon development…But I was surprised, because Zhenjiang and Nanchang are not known for having an advanced economy, but [they nevertheless built impactful climate] institutions – regulations, standards and legislation that shape individual and organisational behaviours in the long term. I thought they were interesting examples of how local regions can really create those institutions.
Then there was Xiamen, which is seen as an environmentally-friendly city and economically is comparable to Shenzhen when you look at GDP per capita. Xiamen actually did not turn its low-carbon policy experimentation into long-term institutions, instead randomly proposing new initiatives [that were not sustained].
I conducted more than 100 interviews, talking with policy-practitioners inside and outside of government about specific policies, their processes and implementation.
I found that, over the course of eight years, these [cities] showed very different levels of engagement.
Some I categorised into substantive engagement, where the local government delivered on their climate goals. [Shenzhen falls into this category.]
Then there is performative engagement – such as in the case of Nanchang – where the local government was more interested in [using climate policies to] attract external investment and access projects from higher levels of government.
But they were not able to enforce the policies, because impressing higher levels of government became the primary motivation.
Zhenjiang was a case of symbolic engagement. It actually created a lot of institutions, such as a specialised agency and a screening system to ensure new [low-carbon] investment. When I was observing Zhenjiang, from 2012 to 2018, officials recognised they needed to be carbon-constrained.
The problem was that Zhenjiang has a very strong power sector – mainly coal power – which supplies the whole eastern coast. That meant, even though the government was very determined to promote low-carbon policies, they faced [opposition from] very strong local actors – meaning the government could only partially implement the targets they set.
Then there is sporadic engagement, as seen in Xiamen. [The city’s approach to climate policy was incremental and cautious] because of a lack of political support [from officials in Xiamen], as well as local coalitions between key actors. So instead, we find random initiatives being promoted.
This explains the uneven policy implementation in China. To begin with, all regions received political support if they joined the pilot programme. But over the years, different regions have engaged very differently, in terms of the regulations, standards and legislation they have introduced, and whether those were paired with enforcement by a group of trained personnel to follow through on those initiatives.
CB: What needs to be done to strengthen sub-national climate policy making?
WG: It’s very important to have groups of personnel trained on climate policy. Since 2010, when I started studying the low-carbon pilot programme, there were no provincial-level people or agencies fully responsible for climate change. Back then, there was only the [central-level] department of climate change under the NDRC.
By the time I finished the book, provincial-level departments of climate change had been created across all provinces. But almost nothing has been established at the city level, so most city-level climate initiatives are being managed under the agencies responsible for air quality.
That means climate change is only one of those local officials’ day-to-day responsibilities. Only a handful of cities have dedicated staff working on climate issues: Beijing, Shanghai, Zhenjiang, Shenzhen and Guiyang.
Nanchang devised some of China’s first legislation to include an annual [financial] budget for low-carbon development. But when I revisited the city, officials were not actually sure about how and whether that budget was being used, because there wasn’t a person responsible for it.
Therefore, even if there are resources available, they can go unused because local officials at the city level are so busy. If climate policy is not prioritised, or written into their job responsibilities, that can be a challenge for sustaining implementation.
In China’s governance structure, the national government comes up with ideas, and the provincial level transfers these ideas down to local-level governments. City-level governments are the ones implementing these ideas.
So we need full-time staff to follow through on policies from the beginning right up to implementation.
Secondly, while almost all cities have now made carbon-peaking plans, one area in which the Chinese government can make further progress is in data.
China has recently emphasised the need to strengthen carbon-emissions data collection and monitoring. But when I was conducting my research, most Chinese cities had not yet established regular carbon-accounting systems.
As such, inadequate energy statistics and insufficient detail remain key barriers to effective climate-policy implementation.
In addition, the relevant data usually is owned by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which does not always share it with other agencies. Local agencies can’t always access detailed data.
When I visited Xiamen, officials told me the local government is now improving emissions monitoring systems. But there should be more systematic and rigorous data collection, covering both carbon emissions and non-CO2 greenhouse gases. Also, much of the company-level data is self-reported, which could affect the accuracy of carbon-emissions statistics.
For continued climate action, it’s also important that the central government ensures that local officials have the institutional support needed to experiment and propose new ideas.
…China will always need local officials willing to introduce new legislations or try new policy instruments – like Shenzhen with its ETS, or establishing new carbon-monitoring platforms.
For that, it needs entrepreneurial bureaucrats who are willing to turn ideas into actions. Ensuring that local governments have the right set of conditions to do this is very important.
CB: What did you find most surprising when researching this book?
WG: That international collaboration is still very important. I found that many officials learnt about climate change through international engagement.
In the current situation, I think international engagement is still very important – particularly given how, even with how geopolitics is really complicating things, many cities continue to have common challenges. For example, collaboration between Shanghai and Los Angeles on green shipping corridors is still ongoing.
That can bring opportunities for continuing climate action at the city level in the face of rising international tensions, as long as national governments give them space to be involved in international climate action.
Another surprise was the factors of what exactly made climate action durable. I was really surprised that many of the cities that I revisited were still involved in the pilot programmes, despite the central government restructuring that shifted the climate change portfolio from the NDRC to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment – which created challenges for the local governments who had to navigate this.
I also thought that the change in mayors for all four cities would lead to climate initiatives falling off the agenda.
But actually, Zhenjiang, Xiamen and Nanchang all maintained their low-carbon initiatives, despite these changes. This showed it isn’t only strong mayors that bring success, but rather a group of trained personnel building and enforcing regulations and standards. So the importance of bureaucrats and bureaucracy in making climate action durable was actually way beyond my initial expectations.
I was also surprised that bureaucrats can be entrepreneurial, even though they work in a centralised system. They are creative, they know how to convince their boss about the importance of climate action and they know how that can bring opportunities for themselves and their boss. And because of how long they have worked in one area, they understand the local politics, policy processes and the coalitions needed to provide solutions.
The post Interview: How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ are helping to shape Chinese climate policy appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interview: How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ are helping to shape Chinese climate policy
Eric Mackres is senior manager of urban analytics for the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and attended London Climate Action Week during the June 2026 heatwave. Usama Bilal is an associate professor of epidemiology and co-director of the Urban Health Collaborative at Drexel University.
As thousands gathered in London for one of the year’s largest climate gatherings last week, Western Europe faced its most severe heatwave ever recorded. The irony was not lost.
Across Europe, over a dozen countries issued urgent heat warnings and Spain registered significant deaths. In London, where air conditioning is rare in buildings and on trains and buses, temperatures soared past 36 degrees Celsius (97F) and schools closed early. The mayor announced the city’s first heat action plan – an important step.
Extreme heat is now a public health crisis for many of the world’s cities, as the urban heat island effect intensifies dangerous temperatures – and it’s growing worse. Around 500,000 people die from extreme heat every year. As global temperatures rise, and with a severe El Niño getting underway, even more people will die and be hospitalised unless cities act soon.
But most cities are still taking a far too one-sized-fits-all approach to tackling heat, looking only at temperatures and not its local effects on people and their health.
People experience heat differently
How extreme heat affects people’s health can vary widely across a country and city, depending on their environment and demographics. Cities can save far more lives and prevent more hospitalisations by taking a tailored approach, using data to understand who’s most vulnerable and directing solutions toward them.
The good news: better data now exists that enable cities to pinpoint who’s most at risk. And that data can inform customised adaptation strategies to save lives. Indeed, the future of cities will hinge on their ability to deliver solutions to extreme heat tailored to at-risk people and neighborhoods.
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First, cities should start by measuring heat’s risks to people’s health locally. Our work in Brazil and across Latin America shows big differences in what temperatures are dangerous and how quickly risks escalate at higher temperatures. These variations exist between cities, between demographic groups and between neighbourhoods.
But it’s not as simple as finding the hottest places. In temperate Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, a person’s risk of death increases by 25% at temperatures of 27 degrees Celsius (81F). In tropical Teresina, in northern Brazil, which is hot year-round, the same temperature does not elevate the risk of death. At 32 degrees Celsius (90F), a person’s risk of death increases by a milder 10%.
These differences also exist within cities where the climate is the same. Elderly people, the very young, lower-income communities and those without air-conditioning and shaded green spaces are all more likely to get sick, be hospitalised, or die from heat. Areas with more trees and green spaces usually have lower temperatures, and therefore lower impacts of heat.
Targeted heat alerts
Second, cities can use this data to develop early warning systems and outreach campaigns that give people more targeted heat alerts. Research in the UK found that the elderly, despite being among the most at-risk, often were unable to heed warnings during the 2022 heatwave. Well-designed heat warning systems and city responses strengthen people’s trust in health services. They can change people’s behaviours and better prepare municipal services, helping reduce illness, hospital visits and deaths.
Rio de Janeiro adopted a heat alert system in 2024 with five alert levels based on past heatwaves’ impacts on health and forecasts of when temperature and humidity will hit those dangerous levels again. The alert levels activate services like cooling centres, extra public drinking water, and changes to outdoor events. When a heatwave struck during Carnival in 2025, the city was able to deploy resources to protect and warn people while still allowing events to go on.
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Finally, cities should use local heat data to target cooling solutions to where they can help people the most. Solutions like tree cover, shade structures and cool roofs lower temperatures and can provide targeted relief for the most vulnerable people, like outdoor workers and those who travel by foot, bike or public transit.
In Florianópolis, Brazil, we helped the local government use heat impact modeling to design a green corridor and urban forestry project that will reduce pedestrians’ heat stress up to 7 degrees C. In Hermosillo, Mexico, our researchers worked with the city and found that certain neighbourhoods could feel up to 14 degrees C hotter than the shaded city center. A park is now under construction that will bring better shade and heat relief to one of the city’s most at-risk areas.
Connecting health and climate planning
Momentum to address extreme heat in cities is growing, from both national and local governments. At last year’s UN climate summit in Brazil, the Belém Health Action Plan saw 30 national health ministries commit to build climate-resilient health systems based on local data and evidence-based policies.
And over 160 local governments joined the Beat the Heat initiative, committing to develop urban heat action plans and deliver passive cooling projects to reduce health risks.
But there’s still a disconnect between health, urban and climate officials. Only 23% of World Meteorological Organization member countries integrate weather information into health surveillance systems. Heat-health impact models, though increasingly easy to scale, are not yet built for every city. Some cities still need to collect local data for specific demographics and neighbourhoods – and many need support.
National and local governments will need to partner on this tailored approach. It will require integrating local heat and health data into public health systems, city planning, infrastructure, and disaster preparedness.
We have the data to know who will be most impacted by extreme heat when – and the solutions to keep people alive and out of the hospital. It’s time for governments to use them.
The post With extreme heat now a public health crisis, local data can save lives appeared first on Climate Home News.
With extreme heat now a public health crisis, local data can save lives
As governments gathered at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa this month, pledging over $6 billion for marine protection, sustainable fisheries and offshore wind, one issue remained largely absent from the main stage: the continued expansion of offshore oil and gas.
From Norway, Brazil and Guyana to South Africa, Angola and Kenya, countries are pushing ahead with offshore oil and gas projects even as they promise to protect marine ecosystems and tackle the climate change that is heating the ocean, raising sea levels and damaging coastal livelihoods.
Governments argue that offshore oil and gas production is needed for energy security, public revenues and economic growth, but environmental groups say new drilling risks locking countries into decades of fossil fuel production just as they are promising to build a sustainable blue economy.
Inia Seruiratu, Fijian parliamentarian and the Pacific COP31 Envoy for the Ocean, said the contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.
“For too long, two conversations – climate mitigation and ocean protection – have run on separate tracks, in separate rooms, with separate experts,” Seruiratu told delegates at a side event during the Mombasa conference held on the shores on the Indian Ocean.
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“We talk about emissions reductions in one hall, and coral bleaching in the other, as if they were unrelated phenomena rather than cause and effect. As we commit to new marine protected areas, new ocean financing and fisheries action, we cannot continue to treat the symptoms while funding the disease,” he added.
In Mombasa, only one side event out of the dozens of panels was dedicated to the threats posed by the expansion of offshore oil and gas. That event was organised by civil society rather than governments.
New wave of offshore projects
One-third of the world’s global production of oil and gas comes from offshore projects. They harm oceans in part through the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the fuels they produce, with climate change already driving record sea temperatures, coral bleaching and sea-level rise.
Offshore exploration and production also affect marine life through seismic surveys, underwater noise, vessel traffic and the risk of oil spills, threatening sensitive habitats such as coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass meadows that support fisheries, biodiversity and coastal protection.
Now, as onshore reserves mature, a new wave of offshore oil and gas development is advancing across the world.
Offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report warns
A May report by Earth Insight found that 85% of all hydrocarbon discoveries made in 2024 were offshore, with new projects advancing from Norway and Brazil to Guyana, Namibia and East Africa.
In Africa, countries such as Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya say exploiting fossil fuel resources could help finance development, support economic growth and lift millions out of poverty, particularly at a time when many face high debt levels and limited access to climate finance.
Kenya’s conundrum
The debate was on display at the Mombasa conference, where host Kenya announced it was joining the Global Offshore Wind Alliance (GOWA), while also defending plans to explore for oil and gas in the Lamu Basin, a biodiverse coastal region.
“The energy transition is a journey. It is not a one-stop shop,” Alex Wachira, principal secretary for Kenya’s Department of Energy, told Climate Home News. “Therefore, we must explore the transition and bring on as many options as possible while exploiting the resources we have. At some point, the entire sector will transition to 100% renewable,” he added.
Wachira said Kenya’s low contribution to global emissions and its continued development needs justify pursuing offshore oil and gas alongside renewables, adding that the country still has “the industrial revolution” to achieve.
“Kenya needs to have a piece of the pie … our emissions today are the least, but we have suffered the most,” said Wachira.
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The East African nation is seen as a world leader in renewable energy, with about 90% of its electricity generated from geothermal, hydropower, wind and solar.
Omar Elmawi, a Kenyan climate activist and member of the Fossil Free Ocean Initiative, said Kenya should focus on expanding renewable energy, adding that new fossil fuel projects could result in financial losses as countries move to cut planet-heating emissions and shift to cleaner energy.
“We know we cannot have a future dependent on fossil fuels. The rest of the world is talking about how to move beyond them,” Elmawi told Climate Home News.
“If we invest heavily in fossil fuels within our oceans, we’ll end up with stranded assets and a huge debt that taxpayers will have to pay,” he added.
Offshore wind as a solution
Many environmental groups argue that offshore wind is a promising alternative, as it can deliver similar economic benefits from energy production without worsening climate change.
A study unveiled at the Mombasa conference by Zero Carbon Analytics, Ocean Conservancy and GOWA found that Africa’s offshore wind potential is vast, yet largely untapped.
The continent could install around 6,750 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity – roughly 28 times its current power generation capacity.
Developing just 5% of that potential could create an estimated 5.9 million jobs and generate more than $1 trillion in economic benefits, while producing enough electricity to meet all projected growth in power demand through 2040, the study found.
Campaigners say this could strengthen energy security, reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and help build new industries around ports, manufacturing and maritime services.
According to a 2025 World Bank report, every $1 million invested in offshore wind creates around 25 jobs – five times more than fossil fuels.
Robust marine protection needed
Bruna Campos, senior campaigner for the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said offshore wind offers a cleaner alternative to offshore oil and gas, but warned that poorly planned projects can also cause harm.
She called for robust marine spatial planning, environmental assessments and early community involvement to ensure the industry does not repeat mistakes associated with fossil fuel development.
“You need to understand what are the impacts that offshore wind will have on sensitive ecosystems and communities,” Campos told Climate Home News.
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A 2024 UN study found that offshore wind farms can disturb whales, seals, porpoises and migratory fish, particularly during construction, when underwater noise and seabed disruption are greatest. At the same time, turbine foundations can act as artificial reefs, creating habitat for some species and boosting local fish populations.
Pacific COP31 Envoy for the Ocean Seruiratu said that while investing in renewables is crucial, it is also important to keep pushing for fossil fuels to be phased out.
He said his own country, Fiji, is among a growing block of nations calling for “a binding international mechanism for an orderly and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels”.
“Every offshore drilling decision, every new exploration site, every delayed phase-out is a decision made against the common good,” he added.
The post Ocean summit stays silent on new wave of offshore oil and gas expansion appeared first on Climate Home News.
Ocean summit stays silent on new wave of offshore oil and gas expansion
Governments are holding “critical” talks this week on a global treaty to curb plastic pollution, as some countries and activists warn that key issues – including measures to rein in soaring plastic production – are being sidelined.
Diplomats are meeting in person in Nairobi for the first time since negotiations were suspended in chaos nearly a year ago, stymied by a long-running deadlock that pits petrostates against more ambitious nations over the reach of the UN pact.
Because nearly all plastic is made from planet-heating oil, gas and coal, the sector’s trajectory will have a major influence on global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The four-day informal gathering, which begins on Tuesday, has been billed by the chair of the talks, Chilean ambassador Julio Cordano, as a “brainstorming” session in which countries are invited to put forward possible solutions to some of the treaty negotiations’ most divisive elements.
Cordano is expected to distill those views in a new document intended to serve as the basis for a new draft text of the future treaty, which governments would take up at the next official round of negotiations, scheduled for March 13-24, 2027.
Two earlier rounds, each billed as the final one, ended without agreement, derailed largely by a standoff over how the treaty should address plastic production, which the UN says is set to triple by 2060 without intervention.
Production curbs in the spotlight
Large fossil fuel and petrochemical producers, led by Saudi Arabia, the United States, Russia and India, have repeatedly argued that the treaty should focus only on managing plastic waste. A US State Department spokesperson told Climate Home News that Washington supports “practical, cost-effective solutions” to plastic pollution, while opposing “global plastic bans”.
A majority of countries – including most European, Latin American, African and Pacific island nations -want to limit the manufacturing of plastic to “sustainable levels”, but have not pushed for any wide-ranging ban.
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Ahead of what it described as “critical” talks in Nairobi, the French government said last week it had already shown flexibility and “significantly scaled back” its initial ambitions. But a French official told a meeting of EU environment ministers that without an explicit reference to the “unsustainable nature” of plastic production, the treaty would be “fundamentally unbalanced, ineffective and, worse still, could set us on the wrong path for decades to come”.
In a separate written communication, the French government lamented that informal meetings held in recent months have given “disproportionate visibility to the positions of the least ambitious states”, fuelling a “risk that partial agreements may be reached only on the issues with the broadest consensus”.
Dennis Clare, a negotiator for the Pacific island nation of Micronesia, told Climate Home News that “if we fail to address any key elements”, including overproduction, the impacts of the plastic crisis on the climate, human health and ecosystems will only grow more severe.
Fears over “political calculations”
Despite such concerns, plastics production is not mentioned in the wide-ranging list of topics Cordano has drafted for the meeting – an omission that has alarmed observers.
Christina Dixon, a campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), said there appeared to be an attempt to write off this crucial element of the treaty as “too complicated and politically unviable”.
David Azoulay, environmental health programme director at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said the meeting’s proposed structure was “highly concerning”. He accused the chair of “making political calculations in favour of potential short-term wins” and aiming to deliver a treaty “based on the lowest common denominator”.
Speaking to journalists last week, Cordano pushed back, insisting that “no topic is off the table” and inviting countries to bring whatever proposals they judged necessary for a successful outcome.
He added that the treaty could not be allowed to settle for just any level of ambition, and that he would not be happy with an outcome at all costs.
“This is what makes it so difficult and complex,” said Cordano, who was elected in February after his predecessor’s resignation. Countries “are trying to be creative” in finding solutions, he explained, because “the road to the objective of our work might not be so obvious”.
The post UN plastics pact talks restart amid fears production curbs will be left out appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN plastics pact talks restart amid fears production curbs will be left out
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