President Xi Jinping speaks on coal-fired power projects abroad. Source: thetimes.co.uk.
In September 2021, during the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a bold declaration that China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.” According to the Council on Foreign Relations, this is a significant step in the right direction since Chinese banks have been the top ten financiers of 75 percent of the world’s coal power plants over the past five years. This initiative by China will be crucial if the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s mission to “[globally] phase out of coal” in order to “keep the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement” is to be achieved.
While the goal to not fund coal-based power plants is a welcome change, many want to understand what China's policy for coal-based power plants is within its own country. According to the Rhodium Group, China emitted 27 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2019 and has more than tripled its emissions over the past two decades. President Xi emphasized China’s commitment to reducing emissions by stating that while emissions are expected to peak by 2030, the country is committed to being carbon neutral by 2040. However, experts point out that China has not clearly articulated a plan on how it expects to achieve carbon neutrality. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Finland reports that, last year, China built more than three times more new coal power capacity than all other countries in the world combined, roughly equivalent to “more than one large coal plant per week.” The country's five-year plan passed earlier this year also contained plans to expand coal production plants within the country.
Therefore, while it is important to applaud China's decision to stop funding coal power in other countries, it is imperative that other nations put pressure on China to reduce its reliance on coal-based power domestically. Without China's commitment to clean energy both domestically and internationally, it will be difficult to tackle climate change.