The world’s largest economies address climate change together.
Beijing:
As China and the United States meet in Beijing this week, the world’s two biggest carbon polluters will look for ways to cooperate on both domestic policy and international trade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as they grapple with disputes over trade and security. Will try to re-arrange relations between. ,
Climate cooperation between the world’s two largest economies is considered essential to the world’s efforts to keep global warming to within 1.5°C of pre-industrial temperatures. Past agreements have encouraged other countries to set even bolder goals.
Here are some key areas for debate this week:
climate finance
Earlier this month, the US and China began discussing the issue of climate finance, which rich countries provide to poor countries for clean energy transition and climate adaptation, as an area of potential cooperation.
The arrangement, which was first agreed upon at the United Nations climate talks in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, is based on the idea that rich countries have a greater responsibility for tackling climate change because they have contributed to climate change in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The bulk of the warming emissions have contributed.
However, China’s rapid growth and rising emissions have led many, including the European Union, to argue that China should also contribute aid. Earlier this month, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Beijing’s contribution could boost the UN Climate Fund.
Beijing has rejected these calls, citing its classification as a “developing country” under the 1992 accord. It has resisted suggestions that those classifications should be reconsidered, and accused the West of trying to escape its historical responsibility for climate change.
However, it has signaled a willingness to offer climate finance to developing countries through various instruments, such as the South-South Climate Cooperation Fund launched in 2015. However, that fund has only disbursed 10% of the $3.1 billion pledged. Think Tank E3G.
methane cooperation
Climate experts are hopeful that progress has been made in tackling methane – a potent greenhouse gas released from energy, agriculture and waste that is responsible for about 30% of global warming.
The two had agreed to work on measuring methane emissions in the past, and will likely look at expanding that collaboration.
Technological advances in methane detection, including the deployment of satellites, provide a potential opportunity for the US to cooperate with China. And the United States expects China to reveal its domestic plans to tackle the issue ahead of the next UN climate conference in December.
solar charge
US tariffs on Chinese solar panels have been a serious problem, imposed in 2018 by the administration of former President Donald Trump, arguing that China’s low-cost products were hurting domestic manufacturers.
They have increased following the passage of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to rapidly expand US renewable energy and reestablish clean energy manufacturing.
President Joe Biden has temporarily halted the tariffs, and has vetoed an effort to repeal the waivers on them. But they have also blocked more than 1,000 shipments of panels from the Xinjiang region over concerns about slave labor.
Beijing says tariffs are hindering the global shift towards clean energy and should be removed. It argues that if the United States wants to “save” the climate from wider diplomatic disputes, it should also avoid unfairly politicizing China’s solar-panel production, which is hindering the global energy transition.
This complex issue is not expected to be resolved in the talks but the discussion may be in trouble.
Coal
While John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate change, praised China’s rapid deployment of renewable energy in his opening remarks on Monday, he indicated that continued construction of coal plants could undermine that progress.
China has pledged to reduce coal consumption, but not until 2026, and new coal power project approvals have accelerated since last year.
China continues to justify its use of coal as an issue of economic security. Meanwhile, the US is the top oil and gas producer in the world and its fossil fuel exports have boomed.
batteries
China’s dominance of the electric vehicle battery supply chain has been another oddity in ties as Kerry meets his counterpart Xie Zhenhua and other senior government officials during a three-day visit to Beijing this week.
Chinese officials worry Washington could extend restrictions on battery imports, after the US in May revoked grants to MicroVast Holdings after lawmakers raised concerns over its alleged ties to China’s government.
Aside from battery trade, Kerry and Zee may talk about ways the countries can share knowledge about battery technologies.
1.5 degree
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to work towards keeping global warming “well below 2 °C” and ideally within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial temperatures. Six years later the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow set 1.5C as the global target. Since then global emissions levels have only increased.
China still refers to the 2-degree language of the Paris Agreement, while the United States, the European Union and many climate-sensitive nations are focused on the 1.5C target. As both countries look forward to COP28 in Dubai, the lack of alignment of temperature targets is likely to be a point of contention, especially as countries are expected to strengthen their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
China, with its massive 1.4 billion population, also describes its emissions output in per capita terms, which compares more favorably with US emissions for a population of 330 million.
The United States focuses on overall national emissions, ignoring both historical emissions and per capita declines.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV Staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)