How China – the world’s biggest polluter – won the praise of green groups

If politics make strange bedfellows, few are more unlikely than the growing link between China and the environmentalists seeking to rein in climate change.

The nation that spews the most pollution and is building dozens of coal-fired power plants is also winning accolades from the likes of Greenpeace and WWF for its efforts to fight global warming and steer an eventual path away from fossil fuels.

“Air quality kills competitiveness, kills people – that’s a big driver for China,” said Rachel Kyte, a United Nations special representative who leads the Sustainable Energy for All programme. “How that translates into their leadership beyond the way they’re already leading is something that will be important to watch.”

Once a wrecker of global warming deals, China under President Xi Jinping is moving to shape the consensus on how to rein in greenhouse gases after US President Donald Trump decided to scale back US involvement. China’s ambitions on climate will be on display this week when Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday to meet Xi, and on the other side of the world where envoys from almost 200 nations gather from Monday in Bonn for UN climate talks. 

Xi is seeking to translate his prestige into gains for China’s diplomatic and trade agenda, opening doors for its rapidly expanding clean energy businesses – especially the solar panel industry it dominates. The nation’s central role on climate may both reduce friction between richer and poorer countries that held up deals in the past and weaken rules designed to bring transparency to measuring pollution.