Focus on Arts and Ecology

The big environmental stories in the Chinese media (16 - 22 April) 

To general relief, China and the US have put aside their differences in almost every other area of engagement to renew a shared commitment on climate change. 
 
In a joint statement last Saturday, the two largest emitters and economies “committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis.”
 
After years of deteriorating US–China relations and a total breakdown of the “G2” climate partnership established in the Obama era, the joint statement was received positively by observers.
 
Then, speaking this Thursday at the US-organised Leaders’ Summit on Climate, President Xi said China will “strictly control coal power projects, strictly control the growth in coal consumption over the 14th Five Year Plan period, and reduce consumption over the 15th Five Year Plan period.” He re-confirmed, but did not update, China’s current carbon emission targets of peaking by 2030 and reaching neutrality by 2060.

Those expecting China to signal higher climate ambition by limiting financing for overseas coal power plants were not satisfied by the speech or the joint statement.
 
Xi’s speech and the US–China re-engagement weren’t the only acts in last week’s climate diplomacy drama. China, in fact, seemed keen to stress that climate action does not revolve solely around US initiative. Last Friday, Xi held a call with German and French leaders Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron in which the three sides agreed to enhance cooperation on climate and biodiversity. Xi made the surprise announcement that China will ratify the Kigali Amendment, a 2016 amendment to the Montreal Protocol designed to reduce the production and consumption of damaging hydrofluorocarbons.
 
The trilateral call was not without tension, though. Xi commented that “responding to climate change… should not become a geopolitical bargaining chip, a target for attacks on other countries or an excuse for trade barriers” – a clear signal of disapproval at the EU’s ideas for a “carbon border adjustment mechanism”.
 
The comment followed similar objections expressed at a climate ministerial meeting among BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) a few days earlier, where a joint statement expressed “grave concern regarding the proposal for introducing trade barriers, such as unilateral carbon border adjustment, that are discriminatory and against the principles of Equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibility.” 
 
Read more on the whirlwind of climate diplomacy surrounding the Leaders’ Summit on Climate here. 

(Sources: China Dialogue)