The US accounts for more than a third of the expansion of global oil and gas production planned by mid-century, despite its claims of climate leadership, research has found. Canada and Russia have the next biggest expansion plans, calculated based on how much carbon dioxide is likely to be produced from new developments, followed by Iran, China and Brazil. The United Arab Emirates, which is to host the annual UN climate summit this year, Cop28 in Dubai in November, is seventh on the list. The data, in a report from…
Tag: Greenhouse gas emissions
China continues coal spree despite climate goals
China is approving new coal power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week, a rate energy watchdogs say is unsustainable if the country hopes to achieve its energy targets. The government has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and in 2021 the president, Xi Jinping, pledged to stop building coal powered plants. But after regional power crunches in 2022, China started a spree of approving new projects and restarting suspended ones. In 2022 the government approved a record-breaking 86 gigawatts (GW) of…
Xi Rejects Pressure on China to Do More to Address Climate Change
During his visit to China this week, John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, pressed the hope that the two powers could work together on the urgent problem of global warming despite their intensifying rivalry on other fronts. But Chinese officials made clear that even as they were willing to restart long-stalled climate talks with the United States, the two countries’ tense overall relationship could constrain cooperation. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, asserted that his government would pursue its goals to phase out carbon dioxide pollution at its own pace and…
How the World’s Two Largest Polluters, U.S. and China, Stack Up
John Kerry, President Biden’s climate change envoy, wraps up high-level talks with Chinese officials on Wednesday aimed at finding ways to work together on climate change despite simmering tensions between the two world powers. The United States and China are the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters as well as the world’s green tech powerhouses. If they can agree to speed plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it could be consequential for the world’s ability to stay within safe limits of global warming. But there are significant hurdles, including longstanding tensions…
As U.S. and China Resume Climate Talks, Here’s Where Things Stand
But she added, “The question is whether it is in a position to talk about phasing coal out faster.” Despite its enormous economy and emissions, China tries to position itself as a defender of the developing world. For nearly two decades, China has been the biggest national emitter, but its average pollution per person is lower than in most wealthy countries, and Beijing has long maintained that those nations should shoulder a greater burden in cutting greenhouse gases and financing global action. Mr. Xie and other officials are likely to…
Republicans Assail Kerry Before His Climate Talks With China
Republicans on Thursday accused John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate, of being soft on China as he prepared to travel to Beijing to restart discussions between the world’s top two polluting countries. In a contentious hearing before a House Committee on Foreign Affairs panel, Republicans attacked Mr. Kerry for not doing enough to persuade China to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, several also sought to portray Mr. Kerry as putting Chinese interests above those of the United States by negotiating with America’s top economic…
Yellen Urges China to Cooperate More on Climate Finance
The Biden administration called on China on Saturday to do more to help developing countries combat climate change, urging the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases to back international climate finance funds that it has so far declined to support. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen delivered the message during her second day of meetings in Beijing, where she is seeking to cultivate areas of cooperation between the United States and China. While China has expressed support for programs to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change, it…
John Kerry to Visit China to Restart Climate Negotiations
WASHINGTON — John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said on Thursday he would travel to China next week to restart global warming negotiations between the world’s two largest polluters. Mr. Kerry’s trip will mark the first climate discussions between the United States and China since August, when Beijing cut off talks in anger after Nancy Pelosi, who was House speaker at the time, visited Taiwan. The talks come as the highest global temperatures ever recorded, driven by the burning of fossil fuels as well as the climate…
Europe Frets U.S. Battery Factory Subsidies Will Hurt, Not Help
European leaders complained for years that the United States was not doing enough to fight climate change. Now that the Biden administration has devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to that cause, many Europeans are complaining that the United States is going about it the wrong way. That new critique is born of a deep fear in Germany, France, Britain and other European countries that Washington’s approach will hurt the allies it ought to be working with, luring away much of the new investments in electric car and battery factories not already…
China ramps up coal power despite carbon neutral pledges
Local governments in China approved more new coal power in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, according to official documents. The approvals, analysed by Greenpeace, reveal that between January and March this year, at least 20.45 gigawatts of coal power was approved, up from 8.63GW in the same period in 2022. In the whole of 2021, 18GW of coal was approved. A Chinese Communist party (CCP) five-year plan from 2016 had placed a heavy emphasis on reducing the use of coal and developing clean…