At COP30 in Belem, the dog that didn’t bark was China. That was key to a weak outcome, tilted heavily towards the lowest common denominator. To understand future prospects for tackling climate change, first understand why, and whether and how that may change.
With the US exiting from the process, China might have been a natural focal point. It accounts for more than 30% of global emissions, but despite continued economic growth its emissions have been flat for the past 18 months and it has now firmly committed to bring emissions down, towards its goal of net zero by 2060. China also wields huge international influence through the Belt and Road initiative. So where does it stand?
At Belem, China was notable for its low profile. The UN process naturally has a core focus on cutting emissions. The final documents’ omissions of any direct reference to phasing out fossil fuels underlines the political difficulty of such a focus, particularly when an implausible number of countries still hope to profit by selling more fossil fuels.
China did little visibly to push things forward. It added its voice to developing countries’ objecting to the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, but even here China’s protests were distinctly muted. The mechanism aims to level carbon costs between domestic industry and imported products, to avoid adverse impacts on industrial competitiveness; China is currently expanding its own emissions trading system to encompass the same heavy industries, and knows that it may need to consider a similar mechanism.
An alternative framing would focus on the opportunities of solutions, principally from clean technologies where the pace of progress is breathtaking.
Enter the Chinese paradox. Internally, its policies are grounded in two clear realities: that climate change is a pressing danger to the whole world (including China), which must be tackled; and that the solution is to accelerate investment and innovation across a swathe of clean technologies.
That focus has led to China now dominating global investment in renewables, with major cost reductions, but the real economic value lies deeper, in electrification. Basic physics dictates the energy efficiency gains available from electrifying end-use technologies of transport, heat, and many industries, instead of burning fossil fuels. In China, electric vehicles are now cheaper to buy, to drive, and to maintain than combustion engines (as they are in Australia and some other countries that eschew tariffs), and they accounted for 60% of new car sales last year.
Attention is turning to electricity storage and industry. China is becoming the world’s first electrostate. Whilst the share of electricity in final energy in the US has flatlined in 2010, in China it has doubled since the turn of the Century, shooting also past Europe where it has risen by about 30%. The US’s current efforts to cling to last century’s energy system is a potential gift to China, and Europe remains constrained by the inherent vested interests of its combustion engine car industry, and other legacy industries (witness the Scunthorpe steel plant in the UK).
It is not just industries, but mindsets. Many developing countries in Belem focused on the right to develop and profit from their fossil fuel resources. But the wind and sun are also major energy resources, and in fact more dominant in many developing countries. They could be clamouring for far more extensive use of those resources. What they typically lack is the technological capabilities, industries and finance – and, in many cases still, the desire, given again the drag of historical mindsets that equate economic opportunities with fossil fuels.
Yet China’s wider economic interests remain curiously ambiguous. It will not back fossil fuel phase-out until China itself is further along that road. It fears growing pressures to embed its international climate finance initiatives in the context of UN obligations. China is well positioned to benefit from global acceleration of the energy transition – but even this can be offset against a longer game: the more that other countries dither in the transition, the greater the chance for China to dominate ever further global clean technologies and supply chains.
Belem showed that Europe and the most vulnerable countries are not strong enough to overcome the resistance to progress on reducing fossil fuel use, most overtly led by Saudi Arabia with support of others including Russia, and the US. China is traditionally, diplomatically cautious on the global stage – preferring to state its position and deliver it, whilst resisting any suggestions it should “lead”. The time will come for China to raise its voice, and that will form a decisive push for stronger action. For the global good, the wait cannot be too long.