China’s Climate Pledge Is Historic in Scale, but Wobbling
Chinese president Xi Jinping’s focus on green investments overseas under the Belt and Road Initiative is ambitious and environmentally necessary. But tighter enforcement of its climate pledge is necessary to curb coal on a global scale.
Emissions rise from a chimney at the Port Qasim coal power plant operated by Port Qasim Electric Power Co., a joint venture between Power Construction Corp. of China and QInvest LLC, in Port Qasim, Sindh Province, Pakistan, on September 19, 2018. (Asim Hafeez / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Activists struggling to reverse a surge in new coal plants around the world have yet another fight on their hands: one of the world’s most ambitious anticoal pledges is looking fragile.
Back in 2021, China’s president, Xi Jinping, announced that the nation’s titanic, $70 billion-a-year investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would throw its weight behind green energy and ban investments in coal projects overseas.
The BRI is the boldest foreign investment commitment by any single country by a long shot. In scale, it dwarfs US president Joe Biden’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment — a counter to the BRI that aims to commit $200 billion over the next five years. And while the US version lacks detail apart from a handful of flagship proposals, Chinese policymakers can point to a multiyear track record of green investments.
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