With less than a month before the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference, China is so far defying pressure to set ambitious climate targets early and to do more to help poor nations cope with the ravages of a warming world.
The United States, other Western countries and some low-lying island nations have been pressing China to take on more responsibility in advancing global climate goals ahead of the conference, according to some veteran climate negotiators and leading Chinese experts. They say they want Beijing to spell out soon how it will slash its planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade. They also say they want China to contribute more cash to help poor countries address the catastrophic impacts of climate change, including rising seas and stronger storms.
But China remains resistant to outside pressure on climate action. In 2020, Xi pledged that China would reach peak emissions “before 2030” and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. But Beijing has not updated this official target since then
A September visit to China by John D. Podesta, senior adviser to President Joe Biden for international climate policy, did not yield the kind of joint action between Washington and Beijing that has catalyzed broader breakthroughs in previous talks.
“This relationship is at a breaking point. If both sides can’t unite this time, they will diverge more in the future,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a think tank.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said publicly that Beijing alone will determine how it addresses global warming and how quickly it transitions away from fossil fuels. In comments to top Communist Party officials last year, Xi declared that such efforts “should and must be” determined without outside interference.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Ministry for Ecology and Environment didn’t respond to requests for comment.