COP26 hopes that Chinese leaders may be absent

SHANGHAI-Starting Sunday, the leaders of most of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters have gathered in Glasgow to develop plans and funds to turn the planet into clean energy. But the person who runs the largest of them may not be there.

Climate observers said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to be absent from the talks, which may indicate that the world’s largest carbon dioxide producer has decided that after three major commitments since last year, it will no longer be at the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Scotland. Provide any concessions.

Instead, China may be represented by Vice Minister of Environment Zhao Yingmin and veteran Xie Zhenhua, who was reappointed as China’s highest climate envoy earlier this year after a three-year hiatus.

“One thing is clear,” said Li Shuo, a senior climate adviser at Greenpeace in Beijing. “COP26 needs high-level support from China and other emitters.

The person in charge of the world’s third largest source of global warming emissions, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Narendra Modi) has pledged to participate in the COP26 summit to be held from October 31st to November 12th. Like other leaders, he will face a commitment from summit organizers to accelerate emissions reductions and set a target date for achieving carbon neutrality—a target that Xi Jinping unexpectedly set for 2060 last year.

But according to an environmental consultant, China does not want to be seen as succumbing to international pressure to achieve more ambitious goals, especially as China is dealing with severe energy supply deflation https://www.reuters.com/world/ china/what-is -behind-chinas-power-crunch-2021-09-29 at home. The consultant, who asked not to be named, said that Beijing “has reached its limit,” citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Although there is no official statement, analysts and diplomatic sources said that few people expect Xi Jinping to attend COP26 in person. Since the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of 2019, he has missed several high-profile global summits and did not personally attend the Global Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China earlier this month.

They also stated that Xi Jinping is unlikely to attend a meeting with few major breakthroughs in person, especially after China rejected the US attempt to treat climate as an “independent” issue to separate itself from the broader diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

Rather than making more concessions, the priority for China and India is to ensure that a strong financing agreement is reached so that rich countries can fulfill their Paris Agreement commitments and provide 100 billion U.S. dollars a year to help pay for climate adaptation and clean technology in developing countries. Transfer costs. Xi Jinping did personally attend the Paris summit in 2015.

Domestic issues

Although Xi Jinping has not been abroad since the outbreak, he has made three major climate statements on the international stage.

In September 2020, he made an unexpected net-zero commitment in a video speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). This statement encourages companies, industries and even other countries to respond with their own net-zero action plans.

Xi Jinping also stated in his April address to the US-led climate leaders summit that China will begin to cut coal consumption before 2026. He used this year’s UN General Assembly to announce the immediate end of overseas coal financing, which is a major point of contention.

Like India, China is also under pressure to add more ambitions to its updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to climate change, which will be announced before the start of the Glasgow talks.

However, the revision is expected to focus on implementing the announced goals, rather than making them more ambitious.

China has repeatedly emphasized that its climate policy is designed to serve its national priorities and will not be at the expense of national security and public welfare.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based non-governmental organization that monitors corporate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, said that China has enough climate challenges to deal with, and there is little room for further development in Glasgow.

He said: “With all the unfavorable factors and all the commitments that have been made, it is important to evaluate and consolidate.”

“It is not enough to write these (promises) on paper,” he added. “We must translate them into concrete actions.”

(Reporting by David Stanway; additional reporting by Neha Arora, New Delhi; editing by Kenneth Maxwell)