Despite China’s status as an economic superpower, its leaders argue that factors involved in China’s modest per capita income make it still a developing country.
The country’s senior climate negotiator said on Tuesday that China is at a “special development phase” that guarantees its current status as the world’s biggest emitter of climate-damaging fossil fuel pollution.
Xie Zhenhua, Special Climate Envoy for China talks to reporters United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
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As a major climate polluter and the world’s second-largest economy, China has been talked about much but seen little at the summit. Chinese President Xi Jinping – who is not known to have left the country during the pandemic – did not join more than 100 other world leaders at the event, instead addressing observers and delegates in a written message on Monday.
Mr Xie, who played a key role in the negotiations that led to the 2015 Paris climate accord, underscored China’s long-standing position that the United States and other developed countries should seek to cut climate-damaging emissions. Act fast, not China.
China is already “making its greatest possible effort to address climate change,” Xie said, adding that China was unable to begin its reliance on coal-fired power plants faster than ever.
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“So with respect to the fact that China is currently the largest emitter, it is because China is in a special development stage,” Mr. Xie said. He said the nation would be able to accelerate its emissions cuts later.
“We don’t just make promises, we honor our promises with real action,” he said.
China, which relies heavily on coal-fired electricity, last year pledged to curb its fossil fuel emissions by the end of the decade and become carbon neutral by 2060.
Climate negotiators then welcomed Xi’s announcements, but its 2060 date is a decade later than many other countries’ targets, and Mr. Xi has resisted international calls to move faster. At the climate summit, China has participated in some initiatives – such as joining a multinational pledge to preserve forests on Tuesday – but announced no new climate efforts so far.
Despite China’s status as an economic superpower, its leaders argue that factors that include China’s modest per capita income make it still a developing country.
As such, it carries less of the burden of cutting emissions than economies such as the United States or Europe, which have already driven for wealth by burning coal and petroleum, China argues. The average American still produces more than twice the climate-damaging amount of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels than the average Chinese citizen.
China and US officials have long played a mutual blame game as global warming has intensified, China has historically blamed the US as the world’s biggest climate polluter, and Donald Trump’s administration in particular. Points to China’s pollution help justify the rollback of US climate efforts.
President Joe Biden used top Monday to express regret for America’s role in climate damage.
“Those of us who are responsible for deforestation and all the problems we have faced so far,” Biden said, have “heavy obligations” to poor countries that are responsible for some of the emissions, yet are paying a price for the planet. It’s hot.
Mr Biden also apologized on Monday for Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate accord, saying it would “put us a little behind the eight ball” to combat climate change.
Mr Xie on Tuesday dismissed a reporter’s question whether China, as the world’s worst carbon emitter, bears similar obligations to other countries for China’s role in damaging Earth’s climate.
Instead, he blamed the US, saying it was Mr Trump’s return that slowed climate efforts.
“We have already wasted five years” of the US withdrawal from the climate agreement, Mr. Xie said. “And now we need to work harder and catch up.”
Mr Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement earlier this year as one of his first acts as president.
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