China Making Steps to Fight Climate Change Amongst Brazil’s Neglect of Deforestation
President Xi Jinping of China addresses the UN General Assembly through a pre-recorded video. Source: Global Times
Last week, the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly was held in New York. Various presidents and high-level officials from all over the world gathered either virtually or in-person to discuss a wide-range of global topics, foremost among them being COVID-19, political conflicts, and climate change.
One very notable instance from the session was when President Xi Jinping of China announced China would not construct any new overseas coal plants. In the video addressing the assembly, President Xi stated: “China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad." This is significant news as China is the largest public financier of coal projects in the world, comprising 13% of global investment. These investments fall under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a project aiming to connect more than 70 countries across Asia, Europe, and Africa through the use of railways, highways, and seaports. China sees this as a method to boost economic and political influence, stimulate the economy and enhance regional connectedness. However, these projects have a significantly harmful effect on our environment, as scientists expect the initiative to drive global warming past 2 degrees celsius.
According to research conducted by the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University, China’s finance of overseas coal plants largely came from demand from the recipient countries. These countries, such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, have domestic policies that prioritize improving access to energy over reducing carbon emissions — and since coal is a cheap and effective fossil fuel, it drives up demand for coal plants. Now, with President Xi’s pledge, these recipient countries can no longer finance coal projects with stimulus from China. In his statement, President Xi emphasized China would promote green and low-carbon energy sources.
Although many organizations, including activist groups such as the international environmental organization 350.org, are celebrating President Xi’s announcement — claiming it to be “huge” and having the potential to be “a real game-changer” — there are certain aspects of this message that must be analyzed. For one, it is not clearly expressed whether the existing projects, which generate 40 gigawatts of coal-powered energy across 20 countries, will be shut down or if only new projects will be prohibited. Additionally, while progress has been placed on its environmentally unfriendly foreign investments, little has changed regarding China’s plans to reduce its carbon footprint domestically. China is still the largest contributor to carbon dioxide, amounting to 28% of the world’s total emissions in 2017, and is sticking with the current plan of having carbon emissions peak by 2030.
Following China’s announcement to reduce its involvement with carbon emissions abroad, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro emphasized at the General Assembly that according to their findings, the rate of deforestation in the Amazon was lower in August of this year compared to August 2020. However, environment analysts and experts argue that these numbers were used incorrectly and to paint a favorable image for the administration. Contrary to numbers released by Bolsonaro’s administration, the Institute of Man and Environment of the Amazon, a Brazilian research institution, claims there was a 7% increase in deforestation comparing August of this year to August 2020. Furthermore, since Bolsonaro took office in 2019, the Amazon has annually lost 4,050 square miles of forest — compared to the 2,594 square miles annually in the 5 years prior to his presidency.
Our environment has dramatically changed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere by 48%. Although we are developing sustainable, renewable technology, there are those that still oppose the transition to cleaner energy. If we are to preserve our environment for generations to come, we must have global leaders that are reducing environmentally unfriendly practices and switching to cleaner, sustainable sources of energy.