Pushing for ambitious climate action

Climate change continues to be one of the existential threats facing the world today, and China will have a critical role to play in the coming decades as the world’s second largest economy. As a result The Elders’ recent visit to China had a significant focus on climate change including meetings with policy makers and investors who are leading China’s action on climate change.

President Xi highlighted in his meeting with The Elders China’s new development philosophy, the “ecological civilization” and the country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. The Elders welcomed this in light of the withdrawal of the US on international leadership on climate, and next year’s work on drafting China’s 14th 5 year plan.

Further meetings during the visit allowed the Elders an opportunity to discuss in more depth two of the key issues related to China that are most likely to impact global efforts in restraining climate change to 1.5 °C — the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the submission in 2020 of countries’ updated Nationally Defined Contributions (NDCs).

With regards to the BRI, the Elders recognised the scale of the project, as one of the most ambitious international development cooperation initiatives seen by the world in many years encompassing over 100 countries with the ambition of lifting millions of people out of poverty through infrastructure investment. The Elders were, however, keen to stress the importance of ensuring not only that investment was made in a way that was locally sustainable, providing jobs and training for local communities, but that the investments made were environmentally sustainable as well.

The Elders were particularly concerned about the need to reduce the amount of investment in fossil fuel projects and suggested that, with China’s role as the world’s largest producer of renewable energy, there was an opportunity to show leadership by exporting this low carbon technology throughout the BRI. In response, the Chinese leadership were keen to assure the Elders that the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as environmental and emissions standards, were considered when evaluating new projects and looking at risk.

With a little over a year before countries will need to submit new NDCs, China’s plans and level of ambition for their NDC was of particular concern to the Elders. The Elders pointed out that current global commitments were not sufficient to keep global warming below 1.5 °C and that they hoped that China would be able to show significant ambition with their updated NDC, particularly in light of the fact that they had shown their ability to meet previous commitments, such as their carbon intensity commitment, early.

Whilst the Chinese did not commit to any specific new target they reiterated their commitment to ecological protection, to delivering on implementation of the Paris Agreement and the importance of a multilateral approach to addressing climate change.