Germany is urging China to be more ambitious in building renewable energy and helping to finance climate protection efforts in poorer countries.
(Bloomberg) — Germany is urging China to be more ambitious in building renewable energy and helping to finance climate protection efforts in poorer countries.
The Asian nation, which accounts for about half of the world’s total annual coal consumption, is increasingly treated as an important partner in international discussions, but needs to do more in terms of its climate commitments, according to Germany’s Special Envoy for International Climate Action Jennifer Morgan.
“Xi Jinping has said they are now a global player — with that status comes responsibility,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Recent conversations with Chinese officials have centered on what more they can do, including becoming a donor to multilateral funds, she added.
“Those were good, solid, constructive conversations, but not easy,” Morgan said, who travels to China regularly. The country is Germany’s biggest trade partner.
Europe’s largest economy announced on Wednesday that it will contribute an additional €2 billion ($2.2 billion) to an international Green Climate Fund designed to speed the transition to low-emission sustainable development, the biggest single donation in the fund’s history.
The move came as representatives from more than 40 countries gather in Berlin this week for the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, which aims to lay the groundwork for the COP28 Climate Change Conference in the United Arab Emirates starting on Nov. 30.
Germany is also hoping for Chinese contributions to a loss and damage fund, which should help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change, and was agreed on at last year’s COP27 in Egypt.
The goal at the COP28 in Dubai is to agree on the fund’s precise setup. Open questions include whether big economies and polluters such as China or Saudi Arabia — still classified as developing countries under United Nations rules which date back to 1992 — should be considered as donors. China has so far insisted on its status as a developing country in a number of international bodies.
Morgan also pushed back against a suggestion by COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber to soften language on phasing out oil and gas.
“What we really will need to see and what the countries of the world are going to bring forward is the end of fossil fuel era and the build-up of renewables,” Morgan said, adding that technologies to capture carbon emissions won’t be sufficient.
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