To be a true climate leader, China should commit to clean energy on the belt and road

Name: China to reduce carbon emissions by over 65 per cent, Xi Jinping says
Uploaded: 2021-02-07T12:45:04.000Z
Duration: 1 min 24 s
Description: China to reduce carbon emissions by over 65 per cent, Xi Jinping says

Beijing’s carbon goals deserve praise, but without cleaning up and decarbonising its overseas energy investment, China will not succeed as a global climate leader

It will have many chances this year to display leadership, starting with the Belt and Road Forum in April and the UN Biodiversity Conference in May

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Construction workers at the Engro Powergen Thar coal power plant site in Pakistan in 2017, one of several energy projects China was helping the country to build as part of a US$55 billion economic partnership. Photo: Bloomberg

Xiaojun Wang

Published: 8:45pm, 7 Feb 2021Updated: 9:12pm, 7 Feb 2021

Last year, for the first time, a greater proportion of China’s overseas energy investment went into renewable energy rather than fossil fuels.

Solar, wind and hydropower projects accounted for 57 per cent of China’s overseas energy investment, compared to 39 per cent in 2019, while coal, oil and gas accounted for the remaining 43 per cent, according to Beijing-based think tank Green Belt and Road Initiative Centre.

Although coal projects still made up 27 per cent of China’s overseas energy investments, up from 19 per cent in 2019, solar and wind projects have grown similarly to 23 per cent from 15.5 per cent. This all happened without any clear, specific guidance or encouragement from the Chinese government, whose climate announcements fail to mention China’s carbon pollution abroad.

Last September, President Xi Jinping told the United Nations General Assembly that China aimed to hit peak emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

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China to reduce carbon emissions by over 65 per cent, Xi Jinping says

Less than three months later, he expanded on the 2030 plan at the Climate Ambition Summit, pledging to cut carbon emissions by at least 65 per cent of 2005 levels, make non-fossil fuels about 25 per cent of its primary energy mix, increase forest cover by 6 billion cubic metres, and grow wind and solar capacity to over 1.2 billion kilowatts.