China steps up to the plate on climate

In a major backtracking move, the United States government has fired the last of the staff members at the State Department's Office of Global Change, which oversees the country's international climate change negotiations. This means the world's largest historical polluter will possibly have no official presence at the 30th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP30, scheduled to be held in Belem, Brazil, in November.

The event will provide representatives from 190 countries with a platform to try to foster consensus on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2035. It is considered to be one of the most consequential climate summits with a large bearing on the future of humanity. The absence of the US at the meeting will compromise the global efforts to address climate change.

A direct outcome of the US' withdrawal could be a shortage of the vital funding that spurs emissions reductions in other countries, and helps the most vulnerable communities to adapt to the mounting impacts of climate change. In 2023, the US announced a $3 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund. And, given that the US is a high-tech superpower capable of providing solutions based on technology and innovation, its reversal on the climate agenda will make it more difficult for countries to try to slow the rising temperatures and deal with increasing extreme weather events.

The US' withdrawal also marks a major step back from the leading role it once played on climate change. The US is abandoning its responsibilities in the midst of a planetary emergency, as some observers said.

The US first committed to the Paris Agreement in a joint announcement with China in 2015. The legally binding international treaty, which entered into force in November 2016, aims to hold "the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 C above preindustrial levels".

Yet just one year later, the US withdrew from the treaty. The US rejoined the pact in 2021 and set the goal of cutting carbon emissions by at least half by 2030. But with the US pulling out of the Paris pact again and taking steps to boost fossil fuels and slow the growth of clean energy under the US leader's pro-drilling energy policy, the world again stands at a critical juncture as to how to work together to ramp up renewable energy and curb planet-warming gases in the face of the harsh reality of global warming.

Despite the challenges, China has remained steadfast in its commitment to green development and emerged as a major contributor to the global transition to renewable energy and the global fight against climate change. The country has been taking concrete steps toward its commitment to peak carbon emissions before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Statistics show that China's energy consumption per unit of GDP decreased by 11.6 percent in the first four years of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period. A reduction that is equivalent to cutting 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, nearly 50 percent of the European Union's total carbon emissions in 2024.

This attests to China's commitment to climate action. Despite the absence of robust US climate moves, China is determined to continue to work with other countries and international organizations to address the shared existential threat they confront. In a joint statement on climate change issued by China and the EU after their meeting in Beijing last week, the two sides reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement and called for strong action at the upcoming COP30. "In the fluid and turbulent international situation today, it is crucial that all countries, notably the major economies, maintain policy continuity and stability and step up efforts to address climate change," it said.

The US' withdrawal from the global climate agenda does not mean the end of the international community's endeavor to combat global warming. Rather, the global efforts aimed at creating a sustainable, resilient and low-carbon future that safeguards the planet that we call home will never cease.

The Paris Agreement demonstrates that countries with divergent interests can come together to address shared concerns that will affect them all. It survived the first US withdrawal eight years ago, and it will survive its second one.