President Xi Jinping has committed China to producing a comprehensive emissions reduction plan, covering for the first time all economic sectors and greenhouse gases, under the UN climate process.
In a speech widely seen as reaffirming the commitment of the world’s biggest polluter to global climate action, Xi said on Wednesday that “no matter how the international situation changes, China will not slow down its efforts to address climate change”.
Speaking at a virtual meeting of global leaders organised by the United Nations and Brazil, Xi announced that China would set new goals to cut emissions by 2035 “covering the entire economy, including all greenhouse gases” ahead of the COP30 summit in November, according to a text published by China’s state news agency.
China’s current target for 2030 – included in its latest Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) released four years ago – only covers carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by the energy sector.
Push for stronger targets
Tackling emissions of all greenhouses gases, beyond CO2, across the whole of the economy is seen as crucial in limiting global warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Through its coal mining and farming sectors, for example, China is the world’s largest emitter of methane, which has a shorter lifespan but is much more potent than CO2.
Addressing the media after Wednesday’s summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Xi’s pronouncement on the upcoming Chinese NDC was “extremely important for climate action”.
After most nations missed an initial February deadline to submit their new NDCs, Brazil’s COP30 presidency – which is organising this year’s UN climate summit in November – and UN officials are encouraging countries to produce updated targets by September.
At Wednesday’s meeting, which saw the participation of 17 leaders, Brazil urged larger economies, including the European Union and China, to commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, as promised in the Paris Agreement, according to Reuters.
Scientists say the planet is already getting perilously close to heating up by 1.5C above pre-industrial times, which is the lower temperature limit governments agreed to aim for in the Paris pact.
Uncertainty over China’s ambition
While close observers of China’s climate policy welcomed Xi’s comments, they cautioned against assuming that the nation’s emission-cutting plans will be automatically ambitious.
Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, told Climate Home that “a strong NDC from China is not yet guaranteed”.
She added that, while discussions being elevated to the highest political level is “a big step forward”, the level of ambition “remains an open question”, especially given the ongoing tariff war with the United States.
Currently, China – which alone accounts for a third of global emissions – has a goal of peaking CO2 emissions “before 2030” and reaching carbon neutrality by 2060.
Since 2020, the country has also pledged to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – a measure known as carbon intensity – by more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030.
China is far off track to meet that intensity target under the combined effect of slower economic growth and a faster rise in CO2 emissions, Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, wrote in an analysis for Dialogue Earth.
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He told Climate Home that Xi’s statement this week did not answer questions over whether China would put forward an absolute emissions reduction target encompassing everything – or different types of targets for the various sectors and gases.
“Coverage isn’t everything,” he said. “It would be better to have an ambitious target for the main CO2-emitting sectors than to have a weak target covering everything.”
Xi’s dig at Trump policy
But the real significance lies in the level of political buy-in. “The more Xi is personally involved and associated with the targets, the less the government can afford the targets to be disappointing or weak,” said Myllyvirta.
In his speech at the UN meeting, Xi also called on countries to support multilateral climate action and deepen international cooperation to enable the free flow of green technologies, in a thinly veiled attack on US policies under President Donald Trump.
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His administration has begun the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement and has slapped tariffs of up to 3,521% on solar panels from key producing countries across Asia.
“The green transition is the only way to deal with climate change, and a new engine for economic and social development,” said Xi on Wednesday.
The post Xi commits China to full climate plan but emissions-cutting ambition still unclear appeared first on Climate Home News.
Xi commits China to full climate plan but emissions-cutting ambition still unclear
The drought-induced draw to save downstream Lake Powell is wreaking havoc on Wyoming-Utah’s beloved recreation area.
As campers with boats flocked to Buckboard Marina at the start of Memorial Day weekend, Tony Valdez was busy issuing refunds and repairing broken boat ramps. One older Green River man, who walked with two canes, left with his money refunded for the season after discovering he could not safely make it down to the boat slip. Due to dropping water levels at Flaming Gorge Reservoir, the ramp is now buckled, angling up and down like a pitched roof.
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Dark clouds are gathering over adaptation finance. The US has all but stopped providing it and European countries are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on their militaries. Much of what is flowing comes in the form of loans and doesn’t reach the most vulnerable, as we’ve reported.
Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.
Back at COP26 in Glasgow, governments agreed that the Adaptation Fund should get 5% of the proceeds from all Article 6.4 carbon credits – other than those based in small islands and least developed countries.
How much money that will amount to is uncertain. It depends on how many projects there are and the price of their credits.
The fund got over $200 million from a similar share of proceeds under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), although the price of those credits collapsed.
While $200 million was a disappointment as ten times that was expected, the Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News in Bonn that the sum was “not insignificant”. By comparison, the fund has been seeking $300 million per year from donor governments in recent years.
Hopes are that the CDM’s successor will yield bigger sums for adaptation. But for the fund to get its hands on the share of cash it is expecting from Article 6.4 projects , governments need to agree to transition the fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement. They are hoping to wrap up those talks in Bonn this week, so that they can rubber-stamp the decision early at COP31.
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It has not been plain-sailing. As small islands’ lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen told a press conference on Tuesday, this transition “is being blocked, frustrating efforts to replenish the fund and ensure that the crucial adaptation finance can flow to those that need it the most”.
This issue, along with other finance complaints, leads small islands “to question whether the implementation of the NCQG [the 2035 finance goal agreed at COP29] is dead on arrival”, she added.
The problem is related to who is considered a developed country at UN climate talks, with the responsibilities for providing climate finance that designation implies.
Traditional donor countries, which have been pushing for years for some wealthier developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China to contribute to climate finance as well, want the Adaptation Fund’s board seats to be split between “developed” and “developing” countries.
They argue that these are the categories referred to in the Paris Agreement and so are appropriate for a fund that exclusively serves that accord.
Developing countries – which have long opposed any of their members being considered developed – argue that the board seats should continue to be split between “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” countries.
These categories, based on lists of nations drawn up in 1992, are more rigid than “developed” and “developing”. While development status can change over time, you’re either on the Annex 1 list or you’re not.
Ollikainen said a delay in agreement beyond COP31 – a risk if the issue is not resolved here in Bonn – would harm people in the real world where adaptation needs are rising sharply while the money to protect them from worsening climate impacts is not.
“If we don’t address adaptation,” the fund’s head told Climate Home News, “that will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them.”
The post Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head appeared first on Climate Home News.
Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head
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