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Climate change
Opinion
Byford Tsang
Juan Pablo Osornio
Byford TsangandJuan Pablo Osornio

The View | As the biggest lender to poor nations, wealthy China can do more for climate finance

  • As the largest bilateral creditor to the world’s poorest states, China can prioritise climate concerns in debt relief
  • It can also support reforms and expansion at multilateral development banks so they can lend more to low-carbon projects and phase out fossil fuel financing

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A demonstrator calls for richer nations, which some argue should include China, to make reparations for the climate loss and damage suffered by poorer nations, at the COP27 UN climate summit on November 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Photo: AP
Byford TsangandJuan Pablo Osornio
China has argued that rich nations should shoulder more of the burden in cutting planet-warming greenhouse gases. This “common but differentiated responsibility” principle, already enshrined in global climate agreements such as the Paris accord, is strongly backed by China and other developing countries in holding developed nations accountable for their historical emissions. But as China’s wealth and emissions grow, so does its climate responsibility.

Richer nations have built their prosperity upon the pollution that continues to destabilise the earth’s climate. Historically, the United States, 27 member states of the European Union and Britain are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases since the start of the industrial revolution.

China’s economic miracle, which has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty and put it on the cusp of becoming a high-income country, was also powered by a fossil fuel-based energy system.
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China is now the second largest economy in the world and the third largest historic emitter after the US and EU. Its cumulative emissions are projected to surpass that of the EU in the second half of this decade.

As China grows richer and its emissions accumulate, it will be increasingly difficult for China to remain in the same class as other developing countries, and Beijing recognises that. “As the levels of development in developing countries diverge, divisions in their interests in economic development and climate change will become more visible,” said a 2020 report by China’s top government climate policy think tank.

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The discord in the long-standing alliance between China and other developing countries, predicted in the report, played out in the COP27 international climate negotiations just concluded in Egypt. Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, speaking on behalf of a group of small island nations under threat from rising sea levels, called upon China and India to help finance the rebuilding of countries after climate disasters.
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