Strained Beijing-Washington relations could lead China to hold back on making new climate pledges, despite growing international pressure on the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
US President Joe Biden is expected at the COP27 summit currently being held in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be conspicuous by his absence.
Cooperation between the two largest emitters in the world has been crucial to achieving progress in nearly 30 years of climate negotiations under the aegis of the UN – in particular to lead to the historic Paris agreement in 2015.
But relations turned sour after the August visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the US ban on selling advanced microchips to China.
The outcome of COP27 is therefore uncertain.
Americans and Chinese have already been placed face to face with their responsibilities in Egypt, French President Emmanuel Macron calling on them in particular to be “really there”.
China was one of the major players in the success of the Paris agreement.
It also plays a crucial role in Egypt, given its population (1.4 billion inhabitants) and the size of its economy, which consumes a lot of resources.
Xi Jinping has already made two strong pledges in recent years that China will peak carbon emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060.
Low hopes
These measures are proving crucial to achieving the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
This limit being exceeded, given the current commitments, the pressure has increased on the main polluters to go further in their promises.
For Alden Meyer, an analyst at the E3G think tank who is interested in climate change, Sino-American cooperation on methane emissions or even deforestation is essential.
“China and the United States will act according to what they believe to be their national interests”, but “it has always been important for the two countries to align their positions at certain key moments”, he says at AFP.
However, hopes for further Chinese announcements at COP27 remain dim.
A report from the Ministry of the Environment published last month insisted on the need to honor, already, the current commitments before formulating new ones.
China’s ‘climate gentleman’, Xie Zhenhua, made that point this week, calling on developed countries to fulfill their pledge to provide $100 billion to poor countries to help them tackle climate change.
China is also under pressure to deliver on plans to cut methane emissions.
This greenhouse gas is present in the atmosphere in much lower proportions than CO2but its warming potential is much greater.
“Neglected”
Methane accounts for about 10% of total Chinese emissions. It comes mainly from mining, agriculture and waste.
Last year, Beijing and Washington said they would work together to control their emissions.
The United States has already announced that it wants to reduce them by 30% compared to 2020 levels, by the end of the decade. China has not yet given its roadmap.
“Methane is an area that has been neglected by China”, but which “can no longer remain in the background”, Li Shuo, from Greenpeace East Asia, told AFP.
The publication or not of a Chinese action plan during the COP27 “will tell us a lot about its willingness to honor its promises and its desire to cooperate with its partners”, according to Mr. Li.
Another concern: for lack of an alternative for the moment, China remains, for its electricity, very dependent on coal, a very polluting source of energy.
Despite this, China can boast a series of policies that continue to make it an emerging driving force in the fight against global warming.
It is very actively developing renewable energies, increasingly protecting its natural areas and moving polluting factories away from large cities in order to improve air quality.