NOW the COP28 has concluded in Dubai. The participation of more than 80,000 delegates (the highest in the history of the COP) from 200 countries around the globe clearly demonstrated superior Chinese human wisdom to jointly working against the increasing intensity and velocity of global climate change incidents, producing huge devastating socio-economic and geopolitical effects around the world in which the developing countries unfortunately have been in the line of fire because of the advanced world’s unwise and unnatural industrial development and macro-economic policies of decoupling and de-risking.
In September 2020, China proposed its strategic goals to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, with top down societal involvement. The development of Chinese industries around new energy, including new-energy vehicle (NEV) and photovoltaic unit manufacture are creating new patterns of development and, of course, producing the new transformational development path of the Middle East Region and in the world. The Chinese delegation and its many institutions, enterprises and observers and setup pavilions, held many related events to provide a platform for participants from various countries to engage in exchanges and understand China’s carbon reduction measures and achievements.
Zhao Yingmin, Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment, said at a China pavilion side event that the investment will create significant market opportunities in clean energy, such as photovoltaics and wind power, as well as in the circular economy sector. The rigorous participation of the representatives including government policy makers, business gurus, investors, researchers, leaders and civil society groups was the clear indication that there was an urgent need of jointly and consensually pushing forward for aid and effective action to block the compounding and horrifying consequences of global warming in the world. Keeping in view the rampant incidents of global climate change resultantly producing high temperatures and extreme weather events affecting states, societies and systems around the globe, the UN rightly terms 2023 COP28 as a vital window of opportunity to correct ways and means and accelerate joint action plan to combat the severe climate crisis.
Critical analysis reveals that of the global climate change’s efforts in the last 30 years since the Rio Summit and the UNFCCC launch, the main stakeholders and parties of the conference has convened every year to determine ambitions and responsibilities related to climate change and assess climate measures but due to complex and complicated socio-economic priorities, geopolitical conflicting realities and last but not the least unwise geostrategic confrontational preferences played a decisive role in the delayed consensus in the world. Even the previous session, COP27 held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt pledged to establish a Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) which has not yet been materialized and implemented. Thus ratios and incidents of global climate change are ruining lives and collateral damages around the world.
So humanity, nature, biodiversity, preservation of ecology, agricultural productivity, health and living standards have been compressed and compromised in the world. Therefore, the Paris Agreement has spurred action on climate change, current policies and promises of the western world to cut greenhouse gas emissions are not sufficient. On the other hand, China being the pioneer of green energies pertaining to wind, solar and hydrogen power generation has been assisting all the members of the BRI and Global South developing countries to cope with looming threats of climate change in the world.
Being the biggest investors of wind & solar energies China has been stimulating green energy transformation in all the BRI member countries. In a giant strategic move the Chinese President Xi Jinping has stopped any new coal energy project in the BRI countries since long, vividly reflecting the global green economic cooperation of the Chinese government. Moreover, because the developing world is facing the numerous spillover socio-economic repercussions of the global climate change, China has been staunch supporter of the “Concept of Climate Justice (CCJ)” to provide some essential economic assistance and financial aid to overcome devastating effects of the global warming in the developing country. In every regional and international forum China has been striving hard to protect the vested interests of developing countries including Pakistan.
China again supported genuine and just demands of the developing countries in the today’s COP28 which will further encourage green transformation, global funds for climate change and most importantly, seeking consensus, cooperation, coordination and collaboration among all main stakeholders to chalk out a holistic and comprehensive global policy to tackle the increasingly incidents of global warming in the world. In this regard, numerous thematic programs covered key climate-related issues, including fast-tracking a just, orderly and equitable energy transition and delivering funds for climate action were held. Thus the COP28 clearly streamlined its strategic priorities by putting nature, lives and livelihoods at the centre of climate action and mobilizing for the most inclusive COP.
In summary, as usual China played an important role in the COP28 and striving hard to reach on a global consensus of limiting long-term global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as was agreed in the Paris Agreement. Therefore successful transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources is must. Ironically, the US emissions per capita are eight times those of China, and 25 times the emissions of India. Thus the main responsibility rests with the developed world and joint efforts between the developed and developing countries should be the global mantra. Good news is that on the opening day of the conference, COP28 reached a consensus on the operation of a $300 million fund aimed at assisting vulnerable countries to cope with the losses and damages caused by climate change, marking a significant breakthrough on the first day of this year’s climate conference.
—The writer is Executive Director, Centre for South Asia & International Studies, Islamabad, regional expert China, BRI & CPEC & senior analyst, world affairs, Pakistan Observer.
Email: [email protected]
views expressed are writer’s own.
