Global Warming Policy Forum | 24 Sept 2014
Chinese Media Warn Against Western “Climate Hegemony”
The UN Climate Summit shows little has changed in China’s thinking on climate change. Despite a prediction by Xinhua that Zhang would “expound China’s bold measures [in emissions reductions] after 2020,” he effectively kicked the can down the road by saying that China would announce its post-2020 actions as soon as possible. Without concrete commitments, China’s promise to reduce carbon intensity and the share of fossil fuels rings somewhat hollow. Zhang’s speech reflects the general pessimism that accompanied the news of Xi Jinping’s absence from the summit. The world will likely have to wait for China’s 13th Five Year Plan (to be adopted in 2016) to see just how serious Xi’s government is about climate change. –Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat, 24 September 2014
Chinese media criticise the West for not “assuming its responsibilities” on climate change, amid a major UN meeting on the issue. “It is highly advisable for those developed countries to stop pointing fingers at China and other developing countries, and start to realistically assume their due and unshakable responsibilities,” says the Xinhua news agency article. In another commentary, Xinhua blames the West for “creating trouble” in order to obstruct the progress of negotiations and warns Western countries not to engage in “climate hegemony”. —BBC News, 24 September 2014
Five years after over 150 heads of state cobbled up a rickety climate deal that fell through, the one-day UN Climate Summit is another attempt of rich nations to push India and China – responsible for one-third of total carbon emissions in 2013 – to accept some strong measures to check global warming. But the two Asian giants are not willing to take the bait unless the developed world anchored by the United States and the European Union offers substantial incentives to developing nations for adopting a cleaner growth trajectory, cutting down on emissions. This [UN summit] will achieve little as India and China do not expect Obama to deliver generous green currency that would motivate emerging economies to revise their country-centric stands. –Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, 23 September 2014
President Obama, emboldened by his use of executive powers to fight climate change at home, challenged China on Tuesday to make the same effort to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions and join a worldwide campaign to curb global warming. Declaring that the United States and China — the world’s two largest economies and largest polluters — bear a “special responsibility to lead,” Mr. Obama said, “That’s what big nations have to do.” Unless Beijing and Washington can resolve their differences, climate experts said, few other countries will agree to the treaty and it will most likely founder. –Mark Landler and Coral Davenport, The New York Times, 23 September 2014
US President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech on climate change at the United Nations General Assembly later on Tuesday is unlikely to change the opposition of developing nations against his green agenda, the Global Warming Policy Forum director Benny Peiser told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. “Obama’s speech will be big on the usual rhetoric, but he won’t be able to change the opposition by India, China and other developing nations to Obama’s green agenda,” Peiser said, adding, “The global deadlock over a new UN climate agreement is solid and nobody is expecting that the climate summit in Paris next year will deliver a legally binding treaty.” –Daria Chernyshova, —RIA Novosti, 23 September 2014
India will play hardball at the United Nations climate summit in New York next week asking rich nations to deliver on their promise to capitalise Green Climate Fund to buy copy rights of clean technologies and have a new climate treaty on the cardinal principles enshrined in Kyoto Protocol and Rio plus 20 outcome document. Kyoto Protocol is based on the principle that only the rich nations have commitment to reduce global warming causing carbon emission while others can take voluntary action whereas Rio plus 20 speaks of right of the development countries to grow for poverty eradication. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided not to participate apparently to express India’s displeasure at the UN agreeing to rich nations to host a conference to push for a climate deal. –Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times 19 September 2014
Germany is likely to miss its 2022 climate targets and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, as the country’s use of coal continues to increase. Only last year the share of electricity generated from coal in Europe’s biggest economy hit the highest in 24 years. The country also opened more coal-fired power plants in 2013 than any other time in the past 20 years as it moves towards a target set three years ago, which aims to have all nuclear power stations shut down by 2022. But falling coal prices seem to have whetted the government’s appetite for the fossil fuel, to the point that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has recently announced it considers coal-based power plants as “indispensable” for the foreseeable future. –Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.com, 22 September 2014
1) Damp Squib In New York As China Procrastinates On Climate Commitments – The Diplomat, 24 September 2014
2) Chinese Media Warn Against Western “Climate Hegemony” – BBC News, 24 September 2014
3) India Warns: Developed World Need To ‘Walk The Talk’ On Climate Change – The Hindu, 24 September 2014
4) Why India And China Snubbed UN Climate Summit – Hindustan Times, 23 September 2014
5) Obama Presses Chinese on Global Warming – The New York Times, 23 September 2014
6) Obama’s Speech Unlikely To Change Indian, Chinese Climate Change Stance: UK Think Tank – RIA Novosti, 23 September 2014
7) Reality Check: Green Germany Set To Miss 2022 Climate Targets As Coal Use Increases – Mining.com, 22 September 2014
1) Damp Squib In New York As China Procrastinates On Climate Commitments
The Diplomat, 24 September 2014
Shannon Tiezzi
The UN Climate Summit shows little has changed in China’s thinking on climate change. The world will likely have to wait for China’s 13th Five Year Plan (to be adopted in 2016) to see just how serious Xi’s government is about climate change.
The UN Climate Summit convened Tuesday in New York, with Chinese president Xi Jinping conspicuously absent. In his place, Xi sent Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli as his special envoy. It would fall to Zhang to answer UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call for global action on China’s behalf.
Ban called for the Climate Summit as a way to jump-start political leadership and global action on the issue of climate change. With negotiations underway for a new climate agreement, Ban decided the global community needed an extra push. In his opening remarks at the summit, Ban emphasized that there is only one thing standing in the way of the necessary action on climate change: “Us.” “I am asking you to lead,” Ban told the attendees, particularly emphasizing the importance of “a meaningful, universal climate agreement in Paris in 2015.” Given the summit’s emphasis on leadership, those states whose leaders chose not to attend (including China) came under some scrutiny.
The Climate Summit did include an impressive roster of political leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama as well as U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Still, Xi was hardly the only leader not to attend either. Among the other noticeable absences: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Unfortunately for China, Xi’s absence was particularly noticeable as Zhang Gaoli was only several speakers removed from Obama.
A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon downplayed the importance of these absences at a news briefing on Sunday. “Obviously, it’s always better to have the highest possible representation,” the Washington Post quoted Stephane Dujarric as saying, “but it is really the commitments that are made, [more] than who delivers them on behalf of the country.”
With that in mind, what new commitments did China bring to the table? The biggest concrete commitment was China’s pledge to provide $6 million to promote South-South cooperation on climate change. In addition, Zhang announced that China would double its annual financial support for the South-South cooperation fund on climate change. Zhang also repeated previous government assertions that China is on target to reduce carbon intensity by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
But despite a prediction by Xinhua that Zhang would “expound China’s bold measures [in emissions reductions] after 2020,” he effectively kicked the can down the road by saying that China would announce its post-2020 actions as soon as possible. Without concrete commitments, China’s promise to reduce carbon intensity and the share of fossil fuels rings somewhat hollow. Zhang also refused to issue a firm commitment for the peaking of China’s total emissions, noting only that China would “try” to reach an emissions peak “as early as possible.”
Zhang’s speech reflects the general pessimism that accompanied the news of Xi Jinping’s absence from the summit: If China had truly important measures to reveal, it would not have sent a vice premier to make the announcement. Instead, the world will likely have to wait for China’s 13th Five Year Plan (to be adopted in 2016) to see just how serious Xi’s government is about climate change.
Despite its vocal commitment to a “war on pollution,” Beijing is especially wary of drastic environmental protection measures at the current time. China’s economy is already vulnerable as China’s leaders try to guide a wholesale shift away from the current growth model. Given this, Beijing is not keen to take on new economic stressors. Instead, Beijing continues to insist that its “national conditions and capabilities” should exempt it from taking on too much responsibility in the fight against climate change.
An op-ed in Xinhua hammered this point home. Ever since China passed the U.S. to become the largest emitter of greenhouses gases in 2007, analysts have argued that China should take on more responsibilities in the fight against climate change. Xinhua shot this argument down as “untenable” given “both historical facts and present reality.” The article holds fast to the old argument that China has every right to place emissions cuts on the back burner while it focuses on economic development. “It is extremely unreasonable and selfish for those developed countries, which have emitted their historical share of greenhouse gases and are relocating their current share, to pass the buck to developing nations and infringe their very right of development,” Xinhua said.
This tug-of-war over the responsibilities of developing nations that are also heavy polluters continues to weigh down climate change negotiations.
2) Chinese Media Warn Against Western “Climate Hegemony”
BBC News, 24 September 2014
Media criticise the West for not “assuming its responsibilities” on climate change, amid a major UN meeting on the issue
Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli told a UN summit on Tuesday that Beijing wanted emissions to peak as soon as possible, without giving a timescale.
Speaking at the same forum, US President Barack Obama said climate change was moving faster than efforts to address it, and the US and China had a responsibility to lead other nations.
Commenting on a Global Carbon Project report showing that China’s per capita carbon emissions have surpassed those of the European Union, the China Daily notes that the report “does not tell the whole story”.
“China and the EU cannot be compared in such a simple way, given their different stages of development and economic situation,” Zou Ji, a professor at the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, tells the paper.
According to him, the EU has produced more cumulative emissions per capita than China since the industrial revolution.
Echoing similar views, Xinhua news agency publishes several commentaries that criticise the West for “hyping up” China’s status as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.
“The climate peril the human race is facing right now is not just an outcome of the industrial growth of developing countries, most of which only started several decades ago,” it argues.
The agency adds that along with globalisation, developed countries are also transferring more carbon emissions to the developing world by “shifting their high energy consuming and polluting industries”.
“It is highly advisable for those developed countries to stop pointing fingers at China and other developing countries, and start to realistically assume their due and unshakable responsibilities,” says the article.
In another commentary, Xinhua blames the West for “creating trouble” in order to obstruct the progress of negotiations and warns Western countries not to engage in “climate hegemony”.
“The West has enthusiastically pointed a finger at developing countries including China, but has totally ignored its promises and responsibilities… Some Western countries should stop acting as a climate hegemony but co-operate with developing countries to find a solution,” it says.
3) India Warns: Developed World Need To ‘Walk The Talk’ On Climate Change
The Hindu, 24 September 2014
India has told a high-powered summit on climate change convened by UN chief Ban ki-Moon that if the developed world “walks the talk”, the international community can certainly achieve the targets it has set to tackle climate change.
India’s Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar told the Climate Summit organised here on Tuesday that India remains committed to pursuing a path of sustainable development through eradication of poverty, both of income as well as energy.
He, however, stressed that it is “self-evident” that developing countries can do more if finance and technology support and capacity building is ensured. “This must be a key focus of international cooperation,” he said. “If the developed world walks the talk, then we can certainly achieve the targets that we have set ourselves collectively,” Mr. Javadekar said.
4) Why India And China Snubbed UN Climate Summit
Hindustan Times, 23 September 2014
Chetan Chauhan
Five years after over 150 heads of state cobbled up a rickety climate deal that fell through, the one-day UN Climate Summit is another attempt of rich nations to push India and China – responsible for one-third of total carbon emissions in 2013 – to accept some strong measures to check global warming.
But the two Asian giants are not willing to take the bait unless the developed world anchored by the United States and the European Union offers substantial incentives to developing nations for adopting a cleaner growth trajectory, cutting down on emissions.
The rich nations’ commitment to provide US $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 for climate mitigation and adaptation is yet to fructify, resulting in the Green Climate Fund remaining a defunct body.
Officially, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese premier Xi Jinping are not attending the summit called by UN chief Ban Ki-moon because of conflicting schedules.
But it is, in fact, a snub to the developed nations for pushing climate talks outside the United Nations framework. “It creates confusion and we don’t agree,” environment minister Prakash Javadekar, who will represent the country at the summit, said without mentioning to the event.
China has opted for a relatively senior functionary, vice-premier Zhang Gaoli, for the talks. While some island nations threatened by rising sea levels because of climate change expressed shock and disappointment, this will achieve little as India and China do not expect Obama to deliver generous green currency that would motivate emerging economies to revise their country-centric stands.
5) Obama Presses Chinese on Global Warming
The New York Times, 23 September 2014
Mark Landler and Coral Davenport
UNITED NATIONS — President Obama, emboldened by his use of executive powers to fight climate change at home, challenged China on Tuesday to make the same effort to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions and join a worldwide campaign to curb global warming.
Declaring that the United States and China — the world’s two largest economies and largest polluters — bear a “special responsibility to lead,” Mr. Obama said, “That’s what big nations have to do.”
The president’s remarks at the United Nations Climate Summit, delivered in a packed chamber of the General Assembly, were broadly aimed at marshaling more than 100 world leaders to confront climate change. But his words were directly focused on putting the onus on China, an essential partner of the United States if a global climate treaty is to be negotiated by 2015.
Unless Beijing and Washington can resolve their differences, climate experts said, few other countries will agree to the treaty and it will most likely founder.
6) Obama’s Speech Unlikely To Change Indian, Chinese Climate Change Stance: UK Think Tank
RIA Novosti, 23 September 2014
Daria Chernyshova
MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) – US President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech on climate change at the United Nations General Assembly later on Tuesday is unlikely to change the opposition of developing nations against his green agenda, the Global Warming Policy Forum director Benny Peiser told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
“Obama’s speech will be big on the usual rhetoric, but he won’t be able to change the opposition by India, China and other developing nations to Obama’s green agenda,” Peiser said, adding, “The global deadlock over a new UN climate agreement is solid and nobody is expecting that the climate summit in Paris next year will deliver a legally binding treaty.”
According to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Obama will announce “a suite of planned tools that will harness the unique scientific and technological capabilities of the United States to help vulnerable populations around the world strengthen their climate resilience.”
The United Nations climate summit in New York will be a one-day event and hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Just prior to the summit and Obama’s speech, New York police arrested 102 climate protesters at the Flood Wall Street demonstration on Monday night, which gathered about 3,000 participants. They blocked Wall Street and Broadway, as according to them, the companies located on those streets sponsored businesses and activities that contribute greatly to climate change.
“Large parts of the green movement are using the climate issue to rally against capitalism and free market economies,” Peiser said about the march and the arrests. “By doing so, they are helping to marginalize the climate campaign even further, pushing it into a small political corner of extremism.”
“Their protest against Wall Street is completely futile and will have no effect on US or international climate negotiations,” Peiser added.
7) Reality Check: Green Germany Set To Miss 2022 Climate Targets As Coal Use Increases
Mining.com, 22 September 2014
Cecilia Jamasmie
Germany is likely to miss its 2022 climate targets and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, as the country’s use of coal continues to increase.
Only last year the share of electricity generated from coal in Europe’s biggest economy hit the highest in 24 years. The country also opened more coal-fired power plants in 2013 than any other time in the past 20 years as it moves towards a target set three years ago, which aims to have all nuclear power stations shut down by 2022.
Germany’s energy revolution —or “Energiewende”— has come at a high price. According to Bloomberg, it has so far added more than $134 billion (100 billion euros) to the power bills of households, shop owners and small factories.
But falling coal prices seem to have whetted the government’s appetite for the fossil fuel, to the point that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has recently announced it considers coal-based power plants as “indispensable” for the foreseeable future.
“Despite the massive expansion of renewable energies, achieving key targets for the energy transition and climate protection by 2020 is no longer realistic,” Thomas Vahlenkamp, a director at McKinsey & Co. in Dusseldorf, Germany, told Bloomberg.
“The government needs to improve the Energiewende so that the current disappointment doesn’t lead to permanent failure,” the adviser to the industry added.
German utilities plan to start new hard-coal plants with 5,606 megawatts of capacity this year and next, data from Bonn-based national grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur show. That compares with a target of at least 10,000 megawatts from new solar and wind installations in 2014 and 2015 under Germany’s renewable energy act, which took effect Aug. 1. Solar output reached a record 24,244 megawatts on June 6, according to EEX.
