The latest UN conference on global warming is scheduled to open in Brazil in mid-November. Known as COP30, it is the first such summit since Donald Trump became US President in January this year.
His first act on entering the White House in 2017 was to sign an executive order withdrawing America from the flagship 2015 UN Paris Agreement on climate change. This was despite the Paris accord being entirely voluntary with no sanctions at all to enforce its provisions. A wholesale retreat by the other main powers on green policies followed and Trump’s shadow has hung over the preparations for COP30.
Environment minister, Ed Miliband, is still clinging to his ‘net-zero’ pledge, to ward off the threat to the left of Labour, but all around pressure on him from big business is growing. BP, after abandoning its green image, is now actively exploring for oil and gas again in the North Sea. A banking consortium, comprising some of the biggest financial institutions who had pledged to fund a green transition, rapidly collapsed after Trump’s victory.
Despite ruling over the biggest greenhouse gas emitter, the driver of global warming, President Xi of China played a very active diplomatic role in the run-up to COP30, positioning himself, although denying it formally, as the international champion on green issues. To do this he is using the BRICS group of ‘developing’ nations, now greatly expanded from the original members, Brazil, Russia, India and China, as a vehicle. His intensive lobbying cannot be divorced from the present trade wars in which green technology plays a central role, primarily involving the USA, China, and to a lesser extent the EU. This, like the other developments already mentioned, has clearly heavily influenced the run-up to the climate summit.
The 2015 Paris agreement stipulated that every five years all signatories should submit pledges called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to improve their global-warming performance, a so-called ratchet mechanism, with the aim of restricting temperature rises to 2C, with an aspiration of just a 1.5C rise. The deadline was February this year, but 95% of countries missed it. Ironically one of the few countries to submit an offer was the USA while Joe Biden was still in office, but this of course was voided only a few weeks later.
After being a very strong supporter of the Paris Agreement, the failure of the EU to submit an NDC, clearly linked to Trump’s election, led to a cascade of other countries following suit. This foot-dragging forced the UN to set a second deadline for the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in September, but after this event two-thirds of states still had not submitted NDCs according to the Carbon Brief website. The countries that had submitted NDCs accounted for only 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Prior to the New York deadline, a meeting in Bonn was called to fix the agenda for COP30 and to iron out contentious issues which had led to fundamental disagreement at the previous two COP gatherings in the UAE and Azerbaijan, linked to the ‘Global Stocktake’. In particular, the pledge to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels, agreed in the UAE, and who would pay to help poor countries mitigate and adapt to the effects of global warming, where the ‘offer’ from the industrialised states was a fraction of the trillions of dollars needed to make any significant difference.
The ‘final text’ made no direct reference to transitioning away from fossil fuels, and there was no agreement on funding for poor countries. There were two documents in the final text putting contradictory positions, with a statement attached saying it “includes divergent views, has not been agreed upon… has no formal status and is open to revision”. In the run-up to COP30 there will be last minute efforts to resolve these differences, but, as at previous summits, the prospects look bleak given the intractable differences between rival power blocs and capitalist nation states, all in pursuit of profit.
Given the lock-jam in international negotiations, a radical lead by China could make a significant contribution in reducing a projected temperature rise, since it is by far the biggest global emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for 29% of the total. State broadcaster CGTN has touted ‘China’s role as the primary driver of the transition’ towards clean energy, and serious action now would boost the credibility of China’s claim to be the world leader in tackling climate change.
However, actions speak louder than words. There is no doubt China leads the world in green tech, having installed more clean energy generating capacity than the rest of the planet put together, and increasingly dominating the world market in wind, solar, electric vehicles (EVs) and battery technology. For example, sales in the UK of EVs made by the Chinese BYD company, have increased nine-fold so far this year alone.
It is a different picture, however, for Chinese greenhouse gas emissions that have continued to rise rapidly, although optimists point to a very recent fall as a sign they may have peaked. They point out that on environmental targets China has a record of under-committing and then over-performing. This is clearly true of green tech, a 2030 target for installation of wind and solar capacity was met six years early. But it is not clear at all that this pattern will be repeated for emission reduction targets.
In theory, China should be in a good position to deliver on targets, since very significant elements of central planning still exist. However, the distortions and corruption caused by a bureaucratic, top down, command system, combined with pressures and contradictions from the large capitalist sector of the economy, make predictions much more complicated.
Speaking at the UN general assembly in September, President Xi pledged to cut China’s emissions by 7-10% below peak levels by 2035. The peak level is not specified, nor when it will be reached, making accurate predictions difficult. However, climate scientists say that a 30% cut from peak levels by 2035 in China is the minimum consistent with not exceeding 1.5C warming. Lauri Myllyvirta from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air is quoted in Carbon Brief as saying that Xi’s 2035 pledge is more closely aligned to 3C warming than 1.5C. Considering 3C would have devastating consequences for the planet; when the peak year occurs is a secondary factor at best, compared to how big the cuts will be after the peak.
Other factors cast significant doubt on the level of China’s future cuts in greenhouse gases. In the past, Xi has made pledges to reduce dependence on coal powered energy, the worst polluter, but there was no mention in his speech of coal. Also, there are still economic incentives to favour coal over renewables, linked to the enduring influence of powerful clans in the coal industry. This has led to reports that all the available renewable capacity is not being used.
A new threat has emerged from methane emissions in abandoned coal mines in China. Methane is up to 100 times more dangerous than the main driver of warming, carbon dioxide. As more coal mines are worked out or closed for climate reasons the problem will get worse, leading to predictions that this source of pollution will shortly overtake that from working mines.
After the re-election of President Trump, who calls climate change a hoax and has taken decisive action in line with that claim, the picture in the run up to COP30 is that retreat from action on global warming is gathering pace rapidly. As well as big corporations and financial institutions, the foot-dragging includes the EU and now, despite its aspiration to global green leadership, China. If COP30 follows the pattern of failed UN climate summits, more and more activists and all concerned with the lack of action on global warming will see them as a charade. A meaningless and pointless talking shop, diverting attention from what really needs to be done, a decisive break with the present capitalist world order, dominated by antagonistic big powers who prevent any agreement to tackle climate change.
Pete Dickenson