By committing to reduce its emissions and by investing massively in green technologies, China asserts itself as the leader in the fight against climate change.
Everyone knows that our world warms up. And everyone knows why. The rejection of pollutants transformed our planet into a greenhouse, trapping the heat of the sun in a polluted atmosphere.
However, the main polluters are not ready to stop, or do it fairly quickly. They are not ready to pay either
Enough to protect people affected and save lives. Evidence of the cost of inaction is everywhere.
As the atmosphere heats up, it contains more and more water. It is like a large sponge, whose pores containing water increase as temperatures rise. This means that the atmosphere retains water longer, causing droughts,
And that it releases more water when it rains, causing floods and landslides. According to the World Meteorological Organization (OMM), each additional degree of warming on the planet increases daily extreme precipitation.
In 2023, serious droughts took place in a large part of South America, southern Africa, the Zambezian basin, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe; Precipitation significantly lower than the average fell in China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam; Floods have occurred in Central Asia, East Africa, West Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Europe; An exceptional melting of snow resulted in unprecedented floods in Kazakhstan and monsoon rains have flooded certain parts of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
The atmosphere would be even warmer if the oceans had not absorbed 93 % of the additional heat created since industrialization. However, the warmer oceans feed more powerful hurricanes and typhoons, such as the Beryl, Helene and Milton storms which devastated part of the Southeast of the United States in 2024. The Super Typhon Yagi, which crossed Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, left more than 500 dead.
A serious drought strikes the wetland of Akgol, in the district of Ereğli, Turkey, October 18, 2024.
The skeptics claim that climate change has nothing to do with human activities. Carefully conducted scientific studies refute this assertion. In November 2024, 612 allocation studies were carried out on 735 extreme climatic events. The analyzes indicated that 74 % of the events had been made more likely, or aggravated, by climate change induced by humans. Scientists have concluded that certain events could never have occurred without human influence.
The human costs of climate change are drugs. Since 2008, the year that data began to be systematically collected, 359 million people have been forced to leave their homes, permanently or temporary, due to weather events. According to the global report on internal displacement 2024 (GRID), 6.6 million
people were moved in 2023 alone due to floods, storms, droughts and forest fires. In fact, as some people have been forced to move several times, more than 20 million separate trips have taken place.
According to the OMM, between 1970 and 2021, 11,778 disasters allocated to extreme weather-Rological and Hydrological phenomena caused 2.1 million deaths and led to economic losses of $ 4,300 billion. Eighty-one percent of these climate-related deaths occurred in developing countries, where 83 % of the world’s population lives, compared to 73 % in 1980. If the number of deaths has decreased by more than two thirds since The 1980s, mainly thanks to better alert systems, the economic cost was almost quintuplely.
The World Economic Forum provides that climate change will result in an additional 14.5 million death by 2050, including 8.5 million due to floods and 3.2 million in drought.
All of humanity would like to avoid these deaths. This is possible thanks to better forecast, adaptation to prevent the worst consequences of climatic disasters and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations Conference on Climate Change, launched in 1995, aims precisely to meet these challenges.
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Attenuation and adaptation require significant investments. The Conference of the Parties (COP29), which was held in Bakou, in Azerbaijan, in November 2024, determined how this cost would be distributed among the rich and less rich countries. In a fair world, polluters should assume financial responsibility for the consequences of their emissions.
Installation of the first floating offshore wind turbine in the world in Yangjiang (Guangdong)
Historically, greenhouse gas emissions have been associated with industrialization and development. The European Commission estimates that 77 % of total CO emissions
Today, the situation is somewhat different. In 2023, Brazil, China and Russia represented 45 % of greenhouse gas emissions, while post-industrial economies, the United States and the European Union, contributed to it respectively 11 % and 6 %. However, per capita emissions in the United States are still 64 % higher than in China.
In 2015, developed countries undertook to provide $ 100 billion in climate funding each year to help developing countries. The plan planned to achieve this objective before 2020, then to agree, before 2025, to continue the mobilization of this amount or to increase it. This question was studied in Baku.
The OECD reports that the $ 100 billion was provided in 2022, two years late compared to the initial target year. However, this assertion is disputed. There is no universally accepted definition of what should be considered “climate funding”. The sums declared by donors include diverted funds from existing development aid budgets, which makes them non -additional. More than half of the funding takes the form of loans, perhaps a fifth subscribed to market interest rates. Loans increase the debt of developing countries.
If the adaptation limits the damage caused by extreme climatic phenomena, it cannot eliminate them completely. The $ 100 billion in agreed climate funding do not cover losses and damage. An agreement was concluded during the COP27 in Charm El-Cheik, Egypt, to create a fund for losses and damage. During COP28, in 2023, Germany, among others, has committed to finance $ 100 million, the European Union 245 million dollars and the United States $ 17.5 million. This funding being insufficient compared to the needs, the fund was also discussed in Baku.
Annual investment needs by 2030 developing countries to meet climate change are well established: 1,300 to 1,400 billion dollars for China and $ 2,400 billion for other emerging markets and countries in development. These figures, from the group of high -level independent experts on climate financing created by the United Nations, are “analytical deductions, and not a“ first offer ”in a negotiation”.
Consequently, in Baku, developing countries have requested that the new climate funding target is $ 1,300 billion rather than $ 100 billion. They also hoped to include losses and damage in the objective in order to guarantee the continuity of financing and, failing that, the establishment of regular reports on expenses related to losses and damages.
Under the leadership of the 77 group and China, developing countries rejected the project of initial negotiation text. They kept good until the developed countries finally accept, at the end of the conference, to take the initiative to raise at least $ 300 billion per year from 2035.
The losses and damage was not included in the agreement, 2035 is in a decade, and there is no firm commitment on the part of developed countries on real contributions. The expression “taking the initiative” marks a decline in relation to the commitment made in 2015 to “provide”. This gap between the need and the answer will undoubtedly cost many lives.
However, with European countries which reduce their development aid and the United States which may withdraw from the UN climate process-as they did under the first Trump administration-it is necessary to reach a Agreement to protect developing countries.
Zhao Yingmin, head of the Chinese delegation in Baku, stressed that, whatever the changes in the geopolitical landscape, China would promote international cooperation on climate change.
In addition, Chinese Vice-Prime Minister Ding Xuexiang has said that, since 2016, China has already paid $ 24.5 billion to help other developing countries fight climate change. Independent research suggests that the contribution of China is equivalent to that of the United Kingdom and is only exceeded by Japan, Germany, the United States and France.
By committing to reducing its emissions and investing in green technologies that lower world costs, China asserts itself as the leader in the fight against climate change.
*Robert Walker is a professor at the Institut de Sociologie de l’Université Normale de Beijing, and professor emeritus and emeritus member of the Green Templeton College of the University of Oxford. He is also a member of the Royal Society of Arts and the Social Sciences Academy of the United Kingdom.
