China’s efforts to shift away from coal will be blunted by the country’s growing carbon footprint overseas, argues Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Climate change is now firmly at the top of the agenda, especially in China.
The world’s largest polluter wants to become an example of a less carbon-intensive economy, one which embraces renewable energy, makes the transition away from coal and has the capacity to capture carbon instead of emit it.
But can China ‘decarbonise’ its economy, and what does cutting carbon domestically mean for the rest of the world?
According to the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, there is a certain dilemma regarding China’s role in moving towards a low-carbon economy, especially given its deeper engagement with Latin America, the new frontier for the reproduction of Chinese capital.
Latin America will be the target of massive investments, to the tune of US$250 billion (1.55 trillion yuan) over the next decade, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised in January.
“I see that the Chinese Government is very committed to climate change at the national level. But they are also committed to development. This is one of the tensions. China has worked to reduce emissions within the country with some success, but just increasing the GDP causes more emissions,” said Stiglitz at a scientific conference on climate change in Paris earlier this month.
Two thousand researchers attended the conference held at UNESCO’s headquarters entitled Our Common Future Under Climate Change, and were keen to report their findings in advance of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21), which will be held in Paris at the end of the year.
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In his address on this year’s World Cities Day, UN-Secretary General António Guterres recognised that “cities have borne the brunt of the pandemic” and called upon governments to “prepare cities for future disease outbreaks”. Authorities cannot waste this opportunity to build back better by simultaneously addressing the increasing economic hardship for the urban poor and climate change impacts. This will help prevent not only future health risks but also the increased risk of urban violence and insecurity.
The new group will try to advance climate policies, even as some of its members are likely to clash. Critics say the group’s efforts won’t go far enough.
With climate change increasingly affecting food production in South Asia, it is time to focus on making food markets more resilient to climate shocks.
Michael Keating, Executive Director at the European Institue of Peace (EIP), argues that peacebuilding and conflict resolution must not disregard the impacts of the climate crisis on livelihoods, social cohesion and conflict resolution.