Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered video remarks to the United Nations Climate Summit held in New York on Wednesday local time.
Noting that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, a pivotal year for countries to submit their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), and global climate governance is entering a key stage, he made the following three proposals.
First, Xi said it is important to firm up confidence. "Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of the time. While some country is acting against it, the international community should stay focused on the right direction, remain unwavering in confidence, unremitting in actions and unrelenting in intensity, and push for formulation and delivery on NDCs, with a view to providing more positive energy to the cooperation on global climate governance," he said.
Second, Xi called for living up to responsibilities. "Fairness and equity should be upheld and the right to development of developing countries fully respected," he said. The global green transition should serve to narrow rather than widen the North-South gap. Countries need to honor the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, whereby developed countries should take the lead in fulfilling emission reduction obligations and provide more financial and technological support to developing countries, he added.
Third, Xi stressed the importance of deepening cooperation, adding that international coordination in green technologies and industries should be strengthened to address the shortfall in green production capacity and ensure free flow of quality green products globally, so that the benefits of green development can reach all corners of the world.
Xi announced China's new NDCs as follows: China will, by 2035, reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent to 10 percent from peak levels, striving to do better; increase the share of non-fossil fuels in total energy consumption to over 30 percent; expand the installed capacity of wind and solar power to over six times the 2020 levels, striving to bring the total to 3,600 gigawatts; scale up the total forest stock volume to over 24 billion cubic meters; make new energy vehicles the mainstream in the sales of new vehicles; expand the National Carbon Emissions Trading Market to cover major high-emission sectors; and basically establish a climate adaptive society.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Thursday that Xi's remarks embody China's commitment to multilateralism and support to the UN. And this is the first time that China put forward an absolute emissions reduction target, which covers economy-wide emissions from all greenhouse gases.
Ma Jun, director of the Institution of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times on Thursday that China's new NDCs are expected to lead the building of consensus and inject motivation into the global climate response at a time when climate governance faces great challenges due to the stampeding pace in emission cuts and divisions in how the issue is recognized.
The latest pledge suggested a more ambitious goal of a continuous fast pace in emission cuts, Ma added.
China's total installed renewable power capacity reached about 1.41 billion kilowatts at the end of 2024, per official data - smashing the previous goal of reaching capacity of 1,200 gigawatts for wind and solar power by 2030, six years ahead of schedule.
Based on the current speed of tech growth and installation, "we are confident we will fulfill and even over-deliver the 3,600 gigawatts target by 2035," Ma said.
Ma explained that to meet the goal, China will need to make sweeping adjustments to its economic structure, its energy consumption, and particularly its logistics and manufacturing sectors; meanwhile geopolitical uncertainties are casting a shadow on China's endeavors.
China upholds the principle that "a promise made must be kept" and its climate pledges are not a simple matter, but require great domestic efforts and international cooperation, Ma said.
The Climate Summit was convened by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres alongside President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, host of the COP30 conference which will kick off in November in the Amazonian city of Belem.
Guterres said, "Now, we need new plans for 2035 that go much further, and much faster," delivering dramatic emissions cuts aligned with 1.5 degrees Celsius, covering all emissions and sectors, and accelerating a just energy transition globally. He stressed that "COP30 in Brazil must conclude with a credible global response plan to get us on track."
The vast majority of the world's nations gathered at the climate summit to make their emission cut pledges over the next decade. The New York Times noted that "geopolitical heavyweights including China, Russia, Japan and Germany were there… The world's poorest countries, including Chad and the Central African Republic, were there. Venezuela, Syria, Iran — there, too. The US was not."
Analysts said that humanity is at a juncture when some countries lack sufficient resources to cope with climate change, while others lack the motivation to put effort in, and even withdrawing from the collective mechanism.
Ana Toni, CEO of COP30 Climate Change Conference, told the Global Times that what is "really wonderful about China, it's a commitment to the system," which gives the entire world a lot of security, when some other countries are less committed to the international system.
China is doing its best, reducing the prices of green technologies and helping other countries absorb them... So let us try to work together…so that we can accelerate the action, Toni added.
When asked whether she was afraid that the Paris Agreement will not be sustained due to elections, wars and other disruptions to implementation, Toni said that "rather than changing by catastrophe, we prefer to change by choice, and our choice is working together under the Paris Agreement to move together on that implementation. We understand that working together is the only way out."
Despite first mentioning China as the biggest greenhouse gas emitter, the New York Times acknowledged that the country's globally dominant solar and wind power industries are also the engine of not just its own transition away from fossil fuels, but the world's, citing numerous studies.
The Guardian reported Wednesday that China is responsible for around a third of all global emissions but has also become the world's leading clean energy superpower.
Ma said that while global climate governance is seeing "fragmentation" and climate topics have been marginalized in the international agenda, China's pledges showcase the country's resolve to take responsibility and could inject much-needed confidence and impetus into joint efforts to respond to such a global and profound challenge.
Given China's research and industrial advantages in green transition, China's pledges are not only a bugle call for action amid climate change, but also an opportunity shared by all countries for green, quality growth. For others, particularly Western countries with green transition capabilities, it is a choice between cooperation and geopolitical bias, in the face of a challenge of a scale beyond the capacity of any single country, the expert said.
Source: Global Times:
Company: Global Times
Contact Person: Anna Li
Email: editor@globaltimes.com.cn
Website: https://globaltimes.cn
City: Beijing
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