China says Europe must take ‘positive action’ on climate change
- Chinese leader climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua tells his German counterpart Jennifer Morgan that he hopes the European ‘backswing’ towards coal is temporary
- Western countries have stepped up their coal consumption to offset disruption to gas supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Xie Zhenhua, who leads China’s climate negotiations, told Germany’s special climate envoy Jennifer Morgan via video link late on Wednesday that global climate governance was currently facing “multiple challenges and uncertainties”.
US-China clean energy decoupling ‘nearly impossible’ and ‘counterproductive’
“The climate policies of some European countries have shown a ‘backswing’, and it is hoped that this is just a temporary stopgap,” he said, according to a summary of the meeting released by China’s environment ministry.
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Villager fishes in drying pools at China’s biggest freshwater lake
Europe has insisted the rise in coal use is only a temporary measure that will have no long-term impact on the EU target to cut emissions by 55 per cent from 1990 to 2030.
China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, is expected to focus on the issue of financing at this year’s global climate talks, known as COP27, which will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in November.
Xie told Morgan that “implementation and action” should be the major theme of the meeting, and said he hoped industrialised countries would quickly meet their pledge under the Paris Agreement to transfer US$100 billion a year in climate funds to developing nations.
Chinese imports of Russian oil and coal continue to rise in July
Foreign Minister Wang Yi told UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday that all parties needed to build a “good political atmosphere” ahead of COP27 and “abandon unilateralism, geopolitical games and green barriers”, according to a statement on the foreign ministry website.
