China and the European Union redoubled their commitment to a strong climate pact on Monday in a Brussels summit, as the Asian giant readied its widely-anticipated pledge for submission. Heads of the world’s number one and three emitters of greenhouse gas emissions signed a joint agreement on climate change and heralded a “new starting point” after 40 years of relations.
It sees a deepening of Sino-European ties as new chiefs seek to overcome former diplomatic hostilities, with Chinese investment earmarked for a European infrastructure fund and greater collaboration on issues from migration to the Greece crisis.
“This year is critical in terms of global climate change governance,” said Chinese premier Li Keqiang, who travelled to the Belgian capital for the first time. “We are willing to work together with the EU side to jointly tackle the challenge posed by climate change that observes principles of common but differentiated responsibility, equity and respective capabilities to implement climate change solutions,” he told reporters in a press conference.
China would submit its “intended nationally determined contribution” before the end of June confirming months of speculation, Keqiang said. Accounting for over a quarter of emissions, it is a significant player in crafting a global warming agreement.
French environment minister Nicolas Hulot has resigned live on national radio in a surprise move that will come as a blow to president Emmanuel Macron’s green credentials. Nicolas Hulot had not made the French president aware of his decision to quit, he told radio presenters, adding his time in office had been an ‘accumulation of disappointments’.
Liberia’s largest palm oil producer, Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) pulls out of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – how can rural communities cope with the impacts? The forests near GVL’s Liberian plantations are not only sacred sites of the region's people but also heavily populated with chimpanzees, leopards, pygmy hippopotamus and forest elephants which are significant not only to the local ecosystem but globally.
Mine closures have caused social and political turmoil in many regions, for example in South Africa. But there are ways of planning and managing the phase-out so that when the inevitable happens, people are better prepared. A new study looks at opportunities beyond mining and finds that infrastructure that supports mining can also be put to new use.
Population pressure, a lack of economic opportunities, environmental degradation, and new forms of travel are contributing to human displacement and unsafe migration on an unprecedented scale. And as millions more people see climate change erode their livelihoods, the problem will get worse in the absence of visionary global leadership.