World leaders from China to EU hold climate meeting without US
The gathering aims to refocus global efforts on climate amid trade and military conflicts
[MADRID] Heads of state and government leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took part in a two-hour virtual meeting aimed at returning focus to climate action in an increasingly challenging global context.
Notably representatives from the US were not on the call organised by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday (Apr 23).
Under President Donald Trump’s administration, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases has started to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a landmark 2015 deal that guides emissions cuts to slow down global warming. Along with retreating from global climate diplomacy, the US has recently added to geopolitical tensions with import tariffs that have rattled worldwide markets for weeks.
“Regardless of changes in the international landscape, China’s efforts to combat climate change will not slow down, its push for international cooperation will not weaken, and its commitment to building a community with a shared future for mankind will not cease,” Xi said in the meeting, according to a report from state-run CCTV.
A “certain major country” is keen on unilateralism and protectionism and has caused “serious impact” on international rules and order, Xi also said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The gathering was designed to build momentum on the fight against global warming at a time when countries’ have been distracted by everything from trade wars to actual wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Even before Trump entered office this year, the world was already behind on the emissions cuts and investment in green technologies needed to avoid catastrophic warming by the end of this century.
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The world surpassed 1.5 deg C of warming on an annual basis for the first time last year and will warm about 2.6 deg C by the end of the century if countries implement their current plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That means more ambitious cuts are needed to keep warming at a longer term average of 1.5 deg C, which is what countries agreed to when they signed the Paris accord a decade ago.
“Our world faces massive headwinds and a multitude of crises, but we cannot allow climate commitments to be blown off course,” Guterres said in a speech shortly after the meeting ended. “Dissenters and fossil fuel interests may try to stand in the way but, as we heard today, the world is moving forward.”
So far, only 19 of the 195 signatories of the deal have presented new emissions cutting plans for the next decade, also known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs. Among them are the UK, Canada, Japan, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and the US, which submitted the plan under former President Joe Biden’s administration. Neither the EU nor China have submitted theirs yet.
“Before COP30 in Belem, China will announce its nationally determined contribution targets for 2035, covering the entire scope of the economy, including all greenhouse gases,” Xi said, according to the CCTV report.
Many of the 17 participants in the meeting on Wednesday agreed to present new plans by September, when the UN will hold a special event, Guterres said. Some of the noteworthy leaders who attended were French President Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Kenya President William Ruto, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine.
The list of countries invited was made up by Brazil and the UN and there was no invitation to the US government, according to a senior source from Brazil’s government, who asked not to be identified as the discussion was not public.
Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira called the meeting a success as it had a “big impact with the participation of important leaders, such as the European Union and China.”
“We held this meeting precisely to call on countries to present their NDCs because there is a long delay,” he said. “We’re looking for ambitious targets.”
The new plans will set the tone of the COP30 summit, the annual climate gathering that will take place in the Amazonian city of Belem, in Brazil, in November. Global leaders and climate diplomats attending will need to come up with a roadmap to mobilise US$1.3 trillion a year in climate funding for developing countries by 2035, while developing nations will expect rich countries to fulfil their promise to double adaptation finance to at least US$40 billion a year. BLOOMBERG
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