Climate, evidence of dialogue between China and the USA, the main causes of global warming

“After years of tenacious efforts, the sky in our country is bluer, the land is greener, the water is clearer, the colors of our country's many mountains and rivers are more vivid.”Whether we're talking about the environment or the economy, China's narratives around its environmental efforts are not short of poetry.On Wednesday, July 18, Washington's climate envoy, John Kerry, prepared to leave Beijing after three days of meetings without concrete results.In those hours, in another room of the capital, Chinese President Xi Jinping he pronounced his closing speech at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection.As many expected, 72 hours were not enough to mend a dialogue on the climate that both powers like to mention without however realizing their intentions.

However, the reopening of dialogue between the two countries could in itself be good news, as underlined also from Kerry:“We had very frank conversations, we came here to break new ground.”It's clear we're going to need a little more work."The dialogue between the two largest producers of emissions in the world is in fact essential in the fight against climate change even if China - also following Xi's declarations - continues to pursue the path of exclusivity of the Chinese experience on climate emergency issues and environmental.

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“China's commitments are unshakable, but the path to the goals, as well as the manner, pace and intensity of efforts to achieve them should and must be determined by the country itself, rather than influenced by others,” Xi reiterated during the conference.An exceptionalist position that grants China the possibility of responding to the crisis according to its own means and needs, first of all that of economic development.As we will see later, precisely the creation of these ideological coordinates allows Beijing to try to influence global climate diplomacy, exploiting the space left by the USA when  they had decided to get away fromParis climate agreement during the Trump administration.

A past behind the scenes

Chinese climate diplomacy has been a peripheral aspect of China's foreign policy for several years.Towards the end of the 1970s, the opening of the country to international trade had pushed the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party towards the economic sphere, a process which culminated in theentrance of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.In those thirty years, meanwhile, Chinese companies had been invited to take part in the country's growth, at any cost.The bill for this unlimited growth inspired by the industrialization of the global north arrived thirty years later with its burden of human and environmental tragedies.

The effects of air, soil and air pollution are such that they are visible to the naked eye:between 2014 and 2015 smog in Beijing he touched levels such that it was nicknamed “airpocalypse” and became the subject of strong criticism by the population.Beyond the capital, people living in industrial areas and near coal-fired power plants were starting to be diagnosed with respiratory diseases and forms of cancer related to local polluting activities.

The Chinese leadership did not appear to be doing any better in terms of international environmental cooperation.Before signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, China had remained at the back of climate diplomacy by exploiting its status as a developing country.This is what happened with the signing of Montreal Protocol for the protection of atmospheric ozone in 1987, or with the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in 1997.In both cases, China had benefited from the mitigating circumstances dedicated to countries with low GDP per capita (PPP).Atbeginning of the 2000s, In fact, the PPA of the People's Republic was nine times lower than that of the United States, while its climate-changing emissions per capita stood at 2.88 tonnes compared to 21.30 tonnes in the USA.Today, however, China emits over 14 million tons of carbon dioxide, overcoming emissions from all OECD countries.

Achieving climate leadership

The power vacuum on climate action opened by former US President Donald Trump has opened up a unique opportunity for China to replace Washington on the climate diplomacy level.A role that has allowed Beijing to respond to external pressure with the card of mediation and the promotion of new initiatives.That's it happened in 2020, when during the UN National Assembly Xi Jinping promised to achieve the net emissions by 2060, passing through a peak in emissions that will be reached by 2030.An announcement defined as both ambitious and too lenient, but still in line with what other countries were deciding on the matter such as the blocking ofEuropean Union, The Japan, theAustralia and the United States which, with the Biden administration, they fixed a cap on net emissions by 2050 and an approved huge investment plan that will lead the US ecological transition.

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China was then the great protagonist of the COP26 of Glasgow, of COP15 on biodiversity (hosting the first part in Kunming) and of COP27 of Sharm El Sheikh.During the speeches, in which Beijing's climate representative took part, Xie Zhenhua, China has assumed a prominent position, giving voice to its vision of energy transition and sustainable development.Not only that:as is happening in other contexts, Beijing is trying to position itself as a spokesperson for the global south, blaming the climate emergency on developed nations, which should pay the costs.At the main multilateral climate forums the narrative does not change.“We believe that empty slogans are not ambitions, and true ambitions can only be demonstrated with concrete actions,” said Director of the Climate Change Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment Li Gao during the monthly briefing with the press, Speaking about COP27, the official he repeated the assumption that the failures of the Western world would not only “seriously influence and hinder the development of climate action in developing countries”, but would also “severely damage mutual trust between developed and developing nations” of development".On the occasion of the G20 in Rome, President Xi Jinping himself used the climate as a term of comparison between China and the Western world:"Developed countries should lead by example on the issue of reducing emissions, fully embrace the particular difficulties and concerns of developing countries, implement climate finance commitments, and provide technological support and know-how to developing countries development".

But observing Beijing's action only at the level of large climate platforms is not enough.As also happens on a commercial and financial level, China attaches great value to bilateral agreements or platforms directed by it.A strategy which, in some ways, allows for greater control of the situation by removing the supervision of a third party - such as the international community in the case of the UN and WTO.Among the most relevant examples are the agreements stipulated within the framework of China-Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC) and with theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).In both cases, China promises to collaborate with these entities in terms of sharing information and skills related to energy and infrastructure development, as well as training in the field of risk management and environmental emergencies.All declarations of intent which, sometimes, have concrete implications for Chinese companies:as he states Beijing, 100 projects for the production of "green" energy have already been completed in Africa in 2022.The enormous construction sites in South-East Asia also continue to work and, as in the African case, often end up under the scrutiny of environmental groups for the environmental impact of such initiatives.Especially when it comes to dams, the main one to date answer Chinese energy needs of developing countries together with coal-fired power plants.

The Beijing version

“Politics cannot be separated from climate.”With this sentence, the head of diplomacy of the Chinese Communist Party and then Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, put an end to climate cooperation between China and the United States in August 2022.The choice was motivated byI arrive to Taiwan by the speaker of the US House, Nancy Pelosi, the highest-level political figure to reach the archipelago in recent years.For the Chinese leadership, the environmental issue, precisely because of its exceptional nature, is also this:a continuous negotiation where China's collaboration must be reciprocated by a series of intentions that go beyond the signing of a new strategy for global sustainable development.

The sector where this complexity emerges most is, inevitably, that of energy.China has made great strides in terms of renewables, investing massively in new projects for “clean” energy:in 2022 alone, for example, Beijing had allocated over 546 billion dollars in new infrastructure and plants dedicated to the production of batteries and electric vehicles, exceeding the United States by four times.The objective is, predicts the National Commission for Development and Reforms, to thus cover 33% of the energy mix thanks to non-fossil sources by 2025.Accomplice one energy demand exponential - today almost double that of the United States - China continues to be the first major consumer of coal (which still stands at around 60% of the energy mix), as well as the main investor in nuclear energy.With 51 operational reactors and another 20 under construction (of which six approved in 2022), covering 5% of the energy mix, the People's Republic he claims nuclear power as one of the options available to it for achieving carbon neutrality.

When it comes to renewables, in particular, China has quickly achieved a dominant position in the "green" industry, placing on the markets a quantity of solar panels and wind turbines capable of revolutionize the price of the energy transition.With the sales of Chinese companies, it is estimated that the price of photovoltaics has dropped by 75% in just ten years.Backed by an ambitious round of government aid, its companies quickly seized the opportunity of electric mobility, cashing in exponential profits at home and abroad.Therefore, recent US maneuvers against Chinese companies have created quite a bit of friction between the two sides of the Pacific.

Between increase of duties towards solar panels, ban against Chinese microchip manufacturers e sanctions linked to human rights violations in Xinjiang, Beijing soon found itself having to recalibrate its role as a great green power.And he did it by landing a textbook blow:the Chinese Ministry of Commerce at the beginning of July he imposed restrictions on exports of gallium and germanium, thus limiting foreign companies' access to some key components for semiconductor production.Even the European Union near to buffer China's giant industry with new criteria for investment and imports, while Beijing advances with new projects in the battery and automotive fields.

Aware of having an economically more advantageous offer on its side compared to other commercial partners, one supply chain consolidated between national mines and foreign concessions (such as it happens in Africa), the People's Republic can fully define itself as a climate power.Not only on a diplomatic level but - above all - commercially.It took China forty years to reach the level of development of advanced economies, and only ten to gain a place of honor at the table of climate negotiations.Two worlds, one might add, contradicting each other.But for the first polluter in the world and at the same time largest producer of energy from renewable sources everything is - for now - possible.

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