China did not fund any overseas coal projects in the first half of 2021, the International Institute of Green Finance said. This marks a milestone in the greening of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which since its inception in 2013 had included generous funding of coal every year.
A top U.S. diplomat is heading to China for talks with her counterparts, but no one expects much to change as China-U.S. relations continue to deteriorate.
Starting tomorrow, over 2,000 power generators in China will begin trading carbon credits on a nationwide market. The credits will be cheap at first and only cover a fraction of China’s total emissions, but the system will expand in the coming years to help the country achieve its climate goals.
This week on Sinica, after an eventful week of climate-change-focused meetings, including U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry’s trip to China, the U.S.-hosted Leaders Summit...
China appeared to accept U.S. climate envoy John Kerry’s proposition that climate change be treated as a standalone issue in relations, nearly three months after dismissing the possibility. But will the words of a new joint statement translate into action?
Is Beijing willing to treat climate change as a “standalone issue” in relations with the U.S., as climate envoy John Kerry has advocated? We may soon find out, after Biden sent Kerry to Shanghai and an unofficial delegation to Taiwan at the same time.
The U.S. and China continue to express mutual distrust or even disdain on many issues today, but tackling climate change could be an area of healthy competition, or even policy coordination.
To reach carbon neutrality by 2060, China will need to develop its domestic green finance industry, attract international investors, and improve its overseas investments, particularly within the Belt and Road Initiative.
According to the UN, the world still needs to dramatically increase its climate commitments to avert disaster. China has promised that its emissions will peak by 2030 — and political meetings in Beijing may soon reveal detail on whether, and how, that is likely to happen.