Chinese President Xi Jinping's tall climate pledges fall flat
May 18, 2022
Beijing [China], May 18 : Contrary to the President Xi Jinping's climate pledges to go carbon neutral by 2060, China has gone back on its promises and continues financing overseas coal projects along with planning to add more coal-fired power plants that will only add to the current carbon emissions.
Notably, in September 2021, China had pledged in September 2021 to stop engagements in the coal-fired plants abroad and also become carbon neutral by 2060, however, all recent actions by China are only another big blow to these climate pledges, reported a think tank, Policy Research Group (POREG).
This year, China has planned to up the ante on coal mining as well. Only in a single year, nearly 300 million tonnes of additional coal will be extracted this year. It will be 7 per cent higher than that mined in 2021-- 4.1 billion tonnes. Along with many other countries, China also promised to make efforts to limit the warming of the atmosphere to 2 degrees Celsius above the level of pre-industrial times.
However, China seems to have taken a back seat in fulfilling these promises. According to the International Energy Agency, China accounted for 33 per cent of global carbon emissions in 2021, which is more than those of the US and developed countries combined.
Another crucial aspect is that China's electricity demand is rising and most of it is fulfilled by coal, a source of fuel that increases carbon emissions and further backtracks all of the country's climate pledges.
Speaking of the carbon emissions, in 2021 it went to over 11.9 billion tonnes, the highest in the world, as per the thinktank.
Li Shuo, a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace said, "This mentality of ensuring energy security has become dominant, trumping carbon neutrality."
Over 70 per cent of coal power plants in the world are financed by Chinese banks under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This is worthy to be noted that China claims that the BRI promotes green development and strengthens eco-environment protection however none of this holds true as far as the reality is concerned.
