China’s role in spotlight as Cop28 climate talks in Dubai enter final phase
- Beijing’s climate chief has denied that the country is blocking talks about whether to commit to ‘phasing out’ fossil fuel use
- However, it has been in ‘intensive’ talks with the US about a deal, suggesting an agreement between the two countries may be a model
The good news was China and the United States, the world’s top two polluters, had been in “intensive” talks over the past two weeks in the United Arab Emirates to find a climate deal “acceptable to all parties”, as China’s top negotiator Xie Zhenhua put it.
It shows despite their intensifying divisions, the rival powers can still work together on some of the most pressing issues when they want to.
The talks look set to run over time, as the US, Europe and low-lying island countries are angry at the draft deal released on Monday by the UAE scrapped calls for fossil fuel use to be “phased out”.
Saudi Arabia, other oil-rich countries and India have led the resistance to the idea – but China’s attitude is also critical to Cop28, which US climate negotiator John Kerry described as the “last” chance to keep temperature rises at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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China has been deliberately vague on the issue so far. As the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, it has been on a post-Covid spree that means the country’s carbon emissions and coal imports are expected to hit record levels this year.
Amid reports that China has been blocking discussions about “phasing out” fossil fuels, Xie dodged a question on the issue at a press event on Saturday.
Beijing did not pledge to phase out dirty coal or stop building new coal power plants in the agreement, which instead called for a rapid expansion of renewable energy to “accelerate the substitution of coal, oil and gas generation”.
In a sign of China’s influence at Cop28, the latest draft deal included language similar to the US-China agreement, which focused on oil and gas used in power generation, not through the wider economy.
Xie, who said Cop28 was “the most difficult” he had ever seen in his 16 years as China’s climate negotiator, nonetheless expressed optimism about the outcome.
Two years ago at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, countries led by the US also tried to push through a draft containing a commitment to phase out coal, but it was later toned down due to opposition by China and India.
According to Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society, the stalemate showed “China wants to stick to Sunnylands whereas the US wants to go beyond”.
Although the US-China climate agreement had set the floor for Cop28, the countries would have to be more ambitious to find solutions to issues that were not covered by the talks in California, he said.
For Beijing, the fossil fuels debate also has an unexpected upside by helping divert attention away from issues such as its expanding coal sector and surging carbon emissions, and Beijing’s reticence about a newly established fund to help the most vulnerable nations address climate impacts.
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China has also been largely exempted from the infamous Fossil of the Day awards organised by Climate Action Network, an international green group that routinely calls out countries for “doing their best to be the worst” at the climate summits.
While Japan, the US and other advanced economies – as well as developing ones such as Brazil and South Africa – have been named and shamed this year for inadequate efforts to tackle climate change, China has seldom got the award in the past decade.
Vietnam, another one-party socialist country, was also singled out over its latest crackdowns on NGOs and climate activists.
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This has raised questions about whether China gets preferential treatment from international environmental groups. According to Jiji Press, Japanese officials complained that their country was selected for the award over the alleged “greenwashing” for the use of coal-fired power plants.
The last times China was singled out were during the Warsaw talks in 2013 when it helped block a reference to equity in a draft text, and a dishonourable mention in 2015 for sinking a temperate target with India.
According to the Jiji report, an official from the green group did not deny China was getting preferential treatment, but expressed concerns that a fossil award may anger Beijing, “possibly leading to a crackdown on environmental groups in the country”.
