With US out of Paris climate deal, China’s now able to lead … but is it willing?
Experts say China’s progress in reducing its own emissions has been so good that it has the capability to assume the mantle from a retreating United States
China has the capability to take the lead in the international effort to tackle climate change after the US administration withdrew from a global accord, and it is simply a matter of willingness, according to analysts and a former United Nations climate official.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, a 195-nation deal to curb the global warming after 2020, leaving a leadership gap that is potentially open to China, which is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Watch: Anger as Trump announces US withdrawal from global climate deal
“If the US is not going to be with them there, shoulder to shoulder as they used to be, well then China, could be the leader,” said Christiana Figueres, who was a top UN climate official from 2010 to 2016.
“It’s not what China needs to do, it is not about what the US has pushed China to do: quite the contrary, it’s what China wants to do. China does want to protect its economy, to be competitive in the future,” she told a press conference on Friday.