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The world’s two largest economies and biggest carbon polluters on Tuesday announced separate financial attacks on climate change.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said his country will no longer finance coal-fired power plants abroad, surprising the world on climate for the second year in a row at the United Nations General Assembly. It came hours after US President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to the poorest countries to $ 11.4 billion by 2024 so those countries can switch to cleaner energy. and deal with the worsening impacts of global warming. This puts rich nations within reach of its long-promised but unrealized goal of $ 100 billion a year in climate assistance for developing countries.
“This is an absolutely defining moment,” said Xinyue Ma, energy development finance expert at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.
This could give some impetus to the big climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in less than six weeks, experts have said. On the eve of the historic Paris climate agreement in 2015, a joint US-China agreement launched fruitful negotiations. This time, with Sino-US relations at risk, the two nations made their announcements separately, hours and thousands of miles apart.
“Today was a very good day for the world,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosts the upcoming climate talks, told Vice President Kamala Harris.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has lobbied frantically this week for greater efforts to tackle climate change, called both announcements good news, but said “we still have a long way to go “to make the Glasgow meeting a success.
Depending on when China’s new coal policy goes into effect, it could shut down 47 planned power plants in 20 developing countries that use the fuel that emits the most heat-trapping gas, roughly the same amount of electricity. coal than in Germany, according to the European Commission. E3G climate think tank.
“It’s a big deal. China was the only remaining major donor of overseas coal. This announcement essentially ends all public support for coal around the world, ”said Joanna Lewis, China, energy and climate expert at Georgetown University. “This is the announcement that many have been waiting for. “
From 2013 to 2019, data showed China was funding 13% of the coal-fired electric capacity built outside of China – “by far the largest public financier,” said Kevin Gallagher, who heads the center. Boston University. Japan and South Korea announced earlier this year that they were pulling out of the coal finance business.
With the three countries withdrawing from overseas coal funding, “it sends a signal to the global economy. It’s an industry that is quickly becoming a stranded asset, ”said Gallagher.
While this is a big step, it’s not quite the end of coal, said Byford Tsang, policy analyst for E3G. That’s because China added so much new coal-fired power last year as it was just potentially canceled overseas, he said.
Tsang warned that the one-sentence line in Xi’s speech that mentioned the new policy lacked details like effective dates and whether it applied to private funding as well as public funding.
What also matters is when China stops building new coal plants in its country and shuts down old ones, Tsang said. It will be part of a push into G-20 meetings in Italy next month, he said. “The Chinese are going to respond to international pressure, rather than US bilateral pressure right now,” said Deborah Seligsohn, China policy and energy expert at Villanova University.
“A coal-free energy mix is decades away,” as coal-fired power plants typically run for 50 years or more, said Chris Field, director of the environment at Stanford University.
Many countries trying to build their economies, including major polluters China and India, have long argued that they need to industrialize with fossil fuels, as developed countries have already done. Starting in 2009, then with “a big deal” in 2015 in Paris, the richest countries pledged $ 100 billion a year in financial assistance to the poorest countries to switch from dirty fuel to clean fuel, said Joe Thwaites, World Resources Institute climate finance expert.
But in 2019, the richest countries provided just $ 80 billion a year, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
So when rich countries like the United States have asked the poorest to do more, “it gives any other country a very easy response,” Thwaites said: “‘You made commitments and you didn’t keep them either. ‘”″
In April, Biden announced he would double the Obama-era financial aid pledge from $ 2.85 billion per year to $ 5.7 billion. On Tuesday, he said he hopes to double that figure to $ 11.4 billion a year from 2024, but he needs the passage of Congress.
The European Union has distributed $ 24.5 billion a year and the European Commission recently increased this amount to over $ 4.7 billion over seven years. “The Europeans are doing a lot more and the Americans are lagging behind,” Thwaites said.
He said several studies calculated that based on the economy, population and carbon pollution of the United States, it would have to contribute 40-47% of the $ 100 billion fund to do its fair share. go.
But Republicans in Congress are not convinced. “We shouldn’t be contributing to a fund that picks winners and losers and further subsidizes China in the process,” said Representative Garret Graves, R-Louisiana, the ranked Republican on the House Climate Committee.
The days of global demagoguery are over, said Michael Oppenheimer, professor of climatology and international affairs at Princeton University. “It’s what happens on the pitch that counts.
“Accelerating the global phase-out of coal is the most important step” to keep the key warming limit of the Paris agreement within reach, said UN chief Guterres.
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The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Department of Science Education at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Associated Press reporter Matthew Daly contributed from Washington.
Follow Seth Borenstein and Christina Larson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears and http://twitter.com/larsonchristina. Learn more about AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate
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