China will no longer finance new coal power plants abroad
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
Just weeks before Cop 26 in Glasgow, two important announcements have come from China and the United States, on coal and transfers to vulnerable nations.
China will no longer finance new coal power plants abroad
Just weeks before Cop 26 in Glasgow, two important announcements have come from China and the United States, on coal and transfers to vulnerable nations.
Just weeks before the start of the twenty-sixth United Nations world climate conference (Cop 26), and just days after the UN itself announced that the emissions reduction pledges put forward by governments are insufficient, at least two pieces of good news have arrived from China and the United States. During the latest United Nations General Assembly, Xi Jinping, president of the Asian power (the world's top nation in terms of greenhouse gas emissions), announced that it will stop financing the construction of coal power plants abroad.
China has built coal power plants in numerous countries
"We will strengthen support provided to other countries in order to develop green and low-impact energy production," the Beijing leader specified. Admittedly, this is only a partial announcement: China, despite having significantly developed renewable sources, continues to exploit at home the fossil fuel that is by far the most harmful to the climate. But the news can only be welcomed. Not least given the scale involved.
According to a 2019 report by the Institute for energy, economic and financial analysis, as much as a quarter of the financing granted by China for new coal power plant projects concerned sites planned outside the Asian nation's territory. In particular, the Beijing government had invested enormous sums of money in new sites in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia and other countries.
Alok Sharma: "Coal's days are numbered"
The news was welcomed by Alok Sharma, president of Cop 26, who commented in a tweet: "Coal's days are numbered. At the Glasgow Conference we must consign it to the past."
At the same time, a not insignificant announcement came from the United States. President Joe Biden, also during the General Assembly, first confirmed the commitments made by Washington on climate. He then promised to double the transfers granted to the nations most vulnerable to climate change. It is well known that the latter are caused in very large part by the developed world, yet the impacts of global warming fall disproportionately on the poorest nations.
Joe Biden promises to double transfers to the most vulnerable nations
It was for this reason that, at Cop 15 in Copenhagen in 2009, transfers of 100 billion dollars per year from the global north to the global south were promised. A sum that, however, has never been fully disbursed. Recently, the secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mathias Cormann, announced that not even in 2019 was the minimum threshold envisaged 12 years ago reached. The wealthy world provided only 79.6 billion dollars. And the first estimates for 2020 are not positive either.
If Biden's announcement were honoured, the United States would need to disburse 11 billion dollars. "Thanks to our contribution, and to an increase in allocations from private actors as well, we will be able to reach 100 billion," the American president stated. A position that it is hoped could facilitate negotiations at Cop 26, given that the financing question has been a source of conflict between governments at recent conferences.