Wen Xu recalls first climbing Muztagh Ata in Kashgar prefecture, Xinjiang, back in 2004. “The snow was thigh deep and we had to use snowshoes to spread our weight. Snow bridges allowed us to cross crevasses.”

The scientist and explorer has now made the trip a dozen times, to collect ice cores and bear witness to the impacts of the climate crisis. “That thick snow is now a mix of hard snow and bare ice,” he says. “We need crampons to get around up there now. The snow bridges have gradually disappeared, while the crevasses have got wider and deeper, forcing us to make long diversions to avoid them.”

Glacier melt has been accelerating in this arid north-western part of China in recent years. By 2050, glaciers smaller than half a square kilometre will disappear here, according to the latest research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Tianshan Glaciological Station. That is under any climate change scenario, and taking into account possible increases in precipitation.

Experts interviewed by Dialogue Earth say glacial melt is an important symbol of global warming. Smaller glaciers may be doomed no matter what we do, but they become alert beacons for climate action as they diminish. The only effective solution to global glacier loss is rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the experts say.

Meanwhile, UNESCO has proclaimed 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, with 21 March to become World Glacier Day.

What happens when a mountain glacier melts?

China’s glaciers are mostly to be found on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. By their seasonal melt, they feed rivers including the Yangtze, Yellow, and Yarlung Tsangpo (which flows on to become the Brahmaputra). Surveys show that between the 1970s and 2010, a fifth of China’s total glacial area melted permanently, meaning 12,442 square kilometres of glacier loss.

Dialogue Earth consulted Tian Lide, a researcher at Yunnan University’s Institute of International Rivers and Eco-security. “When we talk about glaciers melting, people think that means rising sea levels,” he said. “But that’s a risk primarily from ice caps melting in Antarctica, where 90% of the world’s ice is found, and Greenland, second in terms of ice volume.”

Mountain glaciers have nevertheless been melting with surprising speed, and with a more direct impact on human activity, Tian explains. The melt causes more water to flow, with ice dams forming at the ends of the glacier. When those dams collapse in a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), there can be catastrophic consequences for those living and farming downstream.

Melting mountain glaciers can also trigger dangerous ice avalanches. In July 2016, a collapse in the Ngari prefecture of western Tibet caused 600 million cubic metres of glacier to fail. Nine people from local herding families who were grazing their livestock on summer pastures were killed.

A much less obvious result of this glacial melt is methane. Between May 2022 and July 2023, a team of Chinese researchers analysed gas taken from the ice caves and meltwaters of the Laohugou No. 12 glacier – the largest valley glacier on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau’s Qilian Mountains. Their study found that methane levels were two to three times higher than atmospheric background levels. Conversely, CO2 levels were about 2.5 times lower. This may be because the fine sediment scraped from glaciers is rich in minerals. As the sediment mixes with meltwater and atmospheric gas, it undergoes “chemical weathering” which induces CO2 absorption.

However, across a 100-year period, methane’s global warming potential is 28 times that of CO2, rising to 84 across 20 years. The methane levels at the Laohuguou No. 12 glacier prompted a headline in The Paper saying “Melting mountain glaciers are pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like chimneys.”

Early warnings

The results of a seven-year scientific survey of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, involving a 28,000-strong expedition team, were published in August last year. They concluded that the region is getting warmer, wetter and greener. It is also getting darker. As glaciers and snow melts, and vegetation spreads, the land becomes less reflective and absorbs yet more heat.

Adequate management of downstream rivers requires more accurate and timely warnings of disasters like ice avalanches and glacial lake failures, the survey found.

Early warning is currently the best way to reduce the damage of these disasters. When an ice avalanche blocked the flow of the Yarlung Zangbo River in 2018, scientists were able to keep a close eye on the situation with sensors and from helicopters to ensure local people were moved away from the danger. The blockage was eased 56 hours later when the water overcame it, with no loss of life.

The following year, China devised a way to monitor such blockages on the Yarlung Zangbo. Ten-metre-high monitoring towers were installed at vulnerable sites to provide regular observations in all weathers. Real-time monitoring of water levels also began. As of May 2024, five early warnings had been issued.

Glaciers and water security

The Taklamakan is China’s largest desert. Yet in August 2024, this north-western expanse flooded. Lü Xinsheng, chief forecaster at the Xinjiang Meteorological Bureau, told media that high temperatures are rapidly melting the snowpack and glaciers surrounding the desert. The tributaries of the Tarim River swelled and the river eventually burst its banks, turning parts of the Taklamakan into temporary inland seas.

This is not the first time the Taklamakan has flooded. In August 2022, a lake appeared in the southern portion of the desert, causing some people online to speculate incorrectly that climate change could turn the desert into something like an oasis. Chen Yaning, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Xinjiang Ecology and Geography Institute, says: “Changes to glaciers and the hydrological cycle caused by the climate will increase the uncertainty of water supplies, while glacial melting will impact on future water security in the area.”

The aforementioned Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Tianshan Glaciological Station research reaches a similar conclusion. Faster melting will increase the flow of water through rivers, to a point. But once these flows have peaked, they will go into a steady decline.

“Many are worried that their sources of water will dry up once the glaciers are gone,” says Tian Lide. “It depends on the river, though. Glacial and snow melt accounts for almost 80% of the water flowing into the Indus [River]. But glacial meltwater from the Sanjiangyuan (Three River Source) region accounts for 9.13% of the flow of the Yangtze, and 2.24% of the Yellow River’s flow. In many cases, glacial melt accounts for only a small part of a river’s total flow – most of the water comes directly from precipitation.”

Tian explains how precipitation and glacial meltwaters contribute to rivers in different ways: heavy rainfall will quickly increase river levels and may cause floods, but levels will fall equally quickly when rains ease; glaciers are a more stable source of water because they melt steadily, thus providing a sustained water source for those living downstream.

Glacial melt also plays a big role in regulating seasonal changes. In the cold of winter, glaciers grow. As temperatures rise in summer, they release more water, providing a steady source of water when it is needed most. That function will weaken as glaciers diminish, meaning droughts and floods could become more frequent and intense.

What can be done?

Scientists have tried a number of methods to slow glacial melt.

In 2023 and 2024, Chinese scientists attempted to “wrap up” the Tianshan No. 1 glacier. This involved laying insulating and reflective materials (often textiles) on the glacier’s surface to keep it cool and slow the melting.

Similar techniques have been used since the early 2000s to protect glaciers in the Alps. Research has found that wrapping can reduce snow and ice melting by 50-70%.

Commenting for a 2023 Scientific American article, glaciologist Matthais Huss from the University of Fribourg said the textiles approach is only worthwhile in lucrative ski areas. It is not feasible to cover the world’s glaciers in this way. Huss calculated that covering Switzerland’s 1,000 largest glaciers could prevent two thirds of the volume of ice lost every year, but would cost US$ 1.52 billion annually.

In September, a Chinese Academy of Sciences research team took a snow-making machine to the Dagu Glacier in Sichuan Province. The team aimed to turn Dagu’s meltwater back into snow and thereby slow its shrinkage. The outcomes of the intervention remain unclear. But Tian tells Dialogue Earth that, regardless, such methods are only currently suitable for glaciers of value to, for example, science or tourism. They cannot reverse the overall global trend of glacial loss. He says the only way to do that is by rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

A 2022 UNESCO report agrees. In the long term, its authors say, a third of the glaciers across UNESCO’s World Heritage glacierised sites will disappear by 2050, regardless of any measures taken. If global warming can be limited to 1.5C relative to pre-industrial levels, it adds, there is hope that the remaining two-thirds could be saved.

Priceless ice

Alongside their efforts to slow melting, Yunnan University glaciologists are racing to collect ice cores from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Such material could yield potentially vital climate data. For example, analysis of air bubbles trapped in the ice can enable scientists to infer historical temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations.

Many countries are preserving ice cores taken from polar or mountain glaciers in cold stores at research institutions or universities, but risks remain. In 2017, a freezer failure at the University of Alberta in Canada damaged part of the world’s largest collection of ice core samples from the Canadian Arctic. Some scientists have come up with a safer way of storing these samples: a vault has been built in Antarctica, where ice cores can be stored, hopefully, forever.

Wen Xu explains that current technology only allows limited data to be extracted from ice cores. With the glaciers still melting, future researchers may not be able to obtain ice cores themselves. The stored cores, however, will be available and could be studied using advanced techniques not yet developed. “These will be valuable research materials for future study,” he says.

This article was originally published by Dialogue Earth with the title What chance for China’s melting glaciers?

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Chinese EV manufacturer BYD posted record sales of electric vehicles (EVs) in 2024, as Elon Musk’s Tesla saw sales slow for the first time in years. BYD reported that it sold 4.3 million EVs and hybrids in 2024, of which 1.76 million were pure EVs. While Tesla narrowly beat BYD across the whole of 2024, delivering 1.79 million pure EVs, BYD’s 2024 Q4 did actually surpass Tesla.

BYD (short for ‘Build Your Dreams’) was founded in 1995 as a rechargeable battery manufacturer. It expanded into automotive after buying a Shaanxi-based car company in 2003, using its battery experience and supply chains to pivot to EV. It is popular for its cheaper models, which range in price from around RMB 70,000 (£7,697) to RMB 200,000 (£21,991). Tesla’s Model 3, on the other hand, starts at RMB 231,900 (£25,499).

Tesla remains the world’s most valuable car maker, driven by its innovative approach, high-performance vehicles and strong branding (thanks, in part, to the inescapable figure of Elon Musk). However, its higher price point has made it less accessible to a broader market segment, an area where BYD has gained a competitive edge.

This edge over other Chinese brands and, increasingly, international brands, has been sharpened by a number of external and internal factors.

Like all Chinese EV companies, BYD has benefitted from extensive Chinese government subsidies over the past few decades. The government has been subsidising producers of EVs for public transport, taxis and the consumer market since 2009. More than RMB 200 billion (£22.14 billion) was spent on EV subsidies and tax breaks in China over the 2009-2022 period. Moreover, EV consumers in China have received purchase subsidies from the government for a number of years. China is expected to sell more EVs (pure EVs and hybrids) than traditional vehicles for the first time in 2025.

China also has a very strong position in the supply chains for the critical materials used to make EV batteries, especially rare earths. At present, China accounts for over 80% of the world’s rare earth processing, and in late 2024, the country banned shipments to the US of several minerals and metals used in semiconductor manufacturing and military applications, including gallium, germanium and antimony, citing national security concerns.

In terms of internal factors, BYD has also benefitted from its background as a battery manufacturer, which has given it a head start in terms of technology and access to materials. By keeping battery production in-house, it can also achieve significant cost savings.

The big threat posed by BYD’s recent success is increased competition for established automotive brands.

Western markets have largely taken a protectionist stance in response to the massive growth of China’s EV sector. In October 2024, tariffs of up to 45.3% on imports of Chinese-made EVs came into force across the EU, while the Biden administration has also imposed a 100% duty on EVs from China, with President-elect Donald Trump expected to impose further tariffs on imports.

Nevertheless, some commentators suggest that BYD and Tesla are so far ahead of the field that traditional automotive manufacturers are already struggling to compete. Indeed, the growth of the two companies is showing that brand recognition or company history are not predictors of success in the EV market. Future growth will come down to things like AI integration and battery technology, rather than just the cars themselves, giving Silicon Valley and fast-moving Chinese companies a leg-up over traditional car manufacturers.

Now the question for BYD will be whether it can translate its current sales figures, most of which are concentrated in the Chinese market, into global success. For Tesla and other EV manufacturers, the rise of BYD serves as a call to innovate in an increasingly competitive market, innovation that could have a positive knock-on effect in other areas. Ultimately, getting more EVs of any brand on the road is an important step towards giving more people more access to sustainable transportation options.

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Stretching approximately 400 kilometres along the Yellow River in northern China, the Solar Great Wall is projected to generate enough clean energy to meet the entirety of Beijing’s electricity needs by 2030. According to China Daily, the project’s completion is expected to produce 180 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually. To contextualise, Beijing’s electricity consumption in the previous year was 135.8 billion kWh, indicating that the Solar Great Wall’s output would not only satisfy the capital’s energy needs but also provide surplus power for surrounding regions. But what exactly does this mean for China’s energy future, and how will it affect the environment?

A timeline for solar self-sufficiency

China broke ground on Solar Great Wall in early 2024, marking the start of an immense infrastructure project that will span desertified regions in Inner Mongolia, aiming to both generate energy and stabilise fragile ecosystems.

With a target completion date set for 2030, the project demonstrates China’s ambitions of achieving carbon neutrality. While financial specifics remain undisclosed, experts estimate it could require investment of up to $100 billion.

The sheer scale of the Solar Great Wall positions it as a cornerstone of China’s renewable energy strategy, with the added benefit of improving ecological conditions in some of the country’s most degraded landscapes.

A great leap in energy output

The Solar Great Wall’s energy production potential is staggering. By generating 180 billion kWh annually, it will also be able to provide surplus power for surrounding provinces. As reported by ECNS News, this capacity could conserve up to 12.6 million metric tonnes of coal annually and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 31.3 million tonnes.

The project’s energy distribution plan includes an ultra-high-voltage transmission line to connect the solar farm with urban centres in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This should ensure a seamless supply of clean energy to some of China’s most densely populated areas.

Balancing the benefits and risks of solar power

While solar power offers significant environmental benefits, including carbon reductions, it is not without its challenges.

The Solar Great Wall is strategically located in desertified regions along the Yellow River, an area plagued by ecological degradation. According to China Daily, the decision to locate the Solar Great Wall in this region will avoid impacting arable land, and there is also a plan in place for ecological restoration through vegetation growth beneath and around the solar panels.

Moreover, the Solar Great Wall is projected to create around 50,000 jobs by 2030, significantly boosting local economies. Residents of affected areas are expected to see average annual income increases of more than RMB 20,000 (£2,300). This blend of environmental and economic uplift underscores the project’s far-reaching impact.

Large-scale solar farms, while undeniably valuable for reducing carbon footprints, often come with their own ecological risks. Habitat loss and the displacement of wildlife are real concerns, as is the potential for soil disruption during construction.

Another challenge lies in the production and disposal of solar panels. As noted by BBC News, “The manufacturing of solar panels involves hazardous materials, posing risks of environmental contamination if not properly managed.” Recycling solar panels at the end of their lifecycle remains an underdeveloped field, raising questions about long-term waste management.

To address these risks, the Solar Great Wall will employ ‘agrivoltaics’, a system that enables crops to grow beneath the panels, promoting biodiversity and enhancing land productivity.

Additionally, China is investing in recycling infrastructure to handle the eventual disposal of solar panels. Dr Rong Deng, a solar recycling expert at the University of New South Wales, told BBC News that, “Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels.” A robust recycling framework is essential to ensure these materials don’t end up as waste.

Li Hong, an official from the Ordos energy administration, outlined the dual benefits of the Solar Great Wall in an interview with ECNS News: “This achievement will result in an annual green power output of 38 billion kWh, leading to savings equivalent to nearly 12.6 million metric tonnes of standard coal and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 31.3 million tonnes.”

Nevertheless, environmental advocates have urged caution. As The Electricity Hub notes, “While the Solar Great Wall could be transformative, its success hinges on effective mitigation strategies for both ecological and waste management challenges.”

The future of solar in China

The Solar Great Wall is more than just a renewable energy project; it is a symbol of China’s determination to lead the global energy transition. If successful, it will demonstrate how large-scale green initiatives can address climate change while revitalising degraded ecosystems.

Yet, as with any mega-project, the Solar Great Wall’s promise will only be realised through careful planning, community engagement, and a commitment to sustainability. If these challenges can be met, it could set a benchmark for other nations grappling with the dual demands of energy production and environmental preservation.

As the China Daily states, “The Solar Great Wall is a testament to what is possible when technological innovation meets ecological responsibility.”

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Each spring, as Shenzhen’s mangroves burst into life, the region becomes a prime spot for birdwatchers observing the endangered black-faced spoonbill. Known as the giant panda of birds, this species winters in Shenzhen Bay from October to April, in preparation for its northbound migration.

Shenzhen Bay, located in southern China and part of the Pearl River Delta expanding into Hong Kong, is a crucial stop-off point for migratory birds using the East Asian-Australasian flyway. The mangroves support over 200 species of birds and host 100,000 migratory birds each winter, drawing enthusiasts and scientists alike to witness these natural spectacles against the backdrop of one of China’s most bustling urban settings.

Amid the rapid urbanisation that defines modern China, Shenzhen stands out not just for its “futuristic” skyline, but also for its efforts to reassert its ecological priorities. After significant mangrove losses due to aggressive development, Shenzhen’s mangrove recovery has been  “unprecedented”. This resurgence earned one of its wetlands a designation of international importance under the Ramsar Convention in 2022.

The city’s approach to conservation, involving robust policy enforcement and community engagement, illustrates how urban areas can successfully integrate significant ecological habitats, reversing ecological decline in vulnerable delta regions.

Historical ecological decline

Shenzhen’s transformation from a quaint fishing village in 1979 into a bustling international metropolis epitomises China’s rapid urbanisation. As the country’s first special economic zone, it spearheaded economic reforms, but at a significant environmental cost. Extensive land reclamation for commercial and residential development drastically reduced mangrove habitats to a low of 50 hectares in 1991.

The introduction of non-native, quick-growing tree species like Sonneratia apetala, intended as a quick-fix for mangrove restoration and coastal stabilisation, resulted in excessive growth and disrupted native biodiversity. This proliferation created destabilising monocultures, obstructed flood discharge channels and increased waterlogging, complicating flood management efforts.

Restoration efforts and policies

Shenzhen’s 260-km-long coastline, fortified by mangroves, serves as the first line of defence against climate-related disasters. However, environmental stressors such as floods and waterlogging have undermined the coastlines’ structural integrity, diminishing the mangroves’ protective role.

Recognising this vulnerability, the city authorities reversed course in the 2020s, embracing a strategic approach that included selective tree reduction. Haichao Zhou, an associate researcher at Shenzhen University, serves on the conservation panel that recommended a nature-based restoration plan. This strategy, focused on systematically removing fast-growing invasive species, was recently adopted by the local government.

According to the city’s 2023 environmental report, Shenzhen created 12.72 hectares and restored 13.08 hectares of mangroves in 2022 by selectively cutting fast-growing Sonneratia apetala. Although this resulted in a brief fall in overall mangrove cover, it facilitated the regrowth of native species, enabling them to recolonise the wetlands.

“Through careful management practices such as those adopted in Shenzhen, including judicious thinning, selective logging and maintaining suitable hydrological conditions, native species can naturally recover, enhancing mangrove diversity,” Zhou told Dialogue Earth.

Central to Shenzhen’s success in restoring its mangroves is an integrated management strategy, combining a unique governance model with strict regulatory measures. Since 2018, the enforcement of land reclamation bans, which prohibit new coastal reclamations, particularly around mangrove forests, have significantly contributed to their protection.

The 2021 National Wetland Law further bolstered conservation efforts by providing a strong legal framework, which also prohibited unauthorised land reclamation, set “ecological red lines”, promoted mangrove restoration and sustainable use of wetland resources. The law mandates strict penalties for violations and underscores the importance of wetland biodiversity. In Futian district, mangroves have also proven effective in treating municipal sewage, demonstrating the multifaceted benefits of integrating natural ecosystems into urban infrastructure. Today, the city boasts nearly 35,000 hectares of wetlands, with 296.18 hectares reserved for mangroves.

The largest concentration of mangroves, covering around 100 hectares, is found in the Futian Mangrove National Nature Reserve. It forms a critical ecological corridor, connecting fragmented mangrove areas across urban spaces, facilitating bird migration, improving their survival rates and serving as natural barriers against urban encroachment.

Between 2000 and 2022, mangrove cover across Shenzhen Bay expanded significantly from 281.51 to 526.43 hectares, countering the global trend of mangrove loss.

With Hong Kong on its southern side, Shenzhen Bay is ringed with parks and nature reserves. Together, they play a crucial role in conserving and restoring this shared coastal ecosystem (Graphic: Dialogue Earth)

Multi-stakeholder collaboration

East of the Futian nature reserve is the Futian Mangrove Ecological Park, a pioneering model of public resource management, highlighting the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder collaboration. Managed by the Mangrove Conservation Foundation (MCF) since 2015, it is China’s first government-mandated park managed by an NGO.

The MCF, founded in 2012 with support from 32 entrepreneurs and the Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology – China’s first NGO formed of entrepreneurs dedicated to ecological protection and social responsibility – features a governance model with publicly elected trustees, ensuring robust accountability and community involvement.

Baohua Yan, the MCF’s secretary general, emphasised the foundation’s role in bridging conservation efforts between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, repurposing traditional fishponds, known as gei wai, into high-tide habitats for birds. “As gei wai aquaculture practices are no longer conducted in Futian Mangrove Nature Reserve, fishponds now require adjustments and adaptations from the ‘perspective of birds’,” she told Dialogue Earth.

Inspired by techniques from Hong Kong’s Mai Po Nature Reserve, the restoration of gei wai fishponds in the Futian Nature Reserve has converted them into diverse bird habitats, leading to an additional population of 28 water bird species and 13,737 individual birds.

“Shenzhen Bay has limited wetland space, it is unlikely that developed areas will be reconverted into wetlands. Our actions are aimed at maximising the ecological functionality of existing wetland resources,” said Yan.

Lili Sun, founder and deputy board chairwoman of MCF, has championed this innovative social participation model “to strengthen conservation efforts and enhance public resource management”.

The government oversees the park to ensure compliance with environmental policies and standards, providing support in funding, resources and technical assistance. This public-private partnership combines government oversight with NGO flexibility to achieve sustainable public resource management.

“Our work in managing the park and our involvement in community outreach illustrate the vital role NGOs play in bridging government efforts with public interest,” explained Sun. This engagement has increased local and visitor participation in birdwatching, leading to dedicated groups across Shenzhen. Today, Shenzhen boasts 10 provincial-level nature education bases, 22 nature schools and 27 nature education centres.

Sun’s comments were echoed by Yuying Ouyang, a local volunteer and nature-based educator. She told Dialogue Earth that increased birdwatching has raised awareness about mangrove wetlands. For example, public opposition successfully halted a controversial local 2020 tourism cruise dredging project, which threatened mangroves and migratory birds, demonstrating the vital role public awareness and nature education play in conservation efforts.

“The public might have a different attitude towards cruise tourism without birdwatching and nature education,” said Ouyang. “They wouldn’t otherwise understand the significance of preserving a stretch of muddy flats.”

Assessing the success of restoration efforts

A key indicator of Shenzhen’s mangrove restoration success is the resurgence of the black-faced spoonbill population in Shenzhen Bay. Once critically endangered, this species now benefits from improved habitat conditions.

“During the 1980s, the global population of black-faced spoonbills dropped to fewer than 300 individuals. However, concerted conservation efforts across their migratory range have proved hugely successful,” explained Qijie Zan, a mangrove expert from the Futian nature reserve. A 2023 census reported a record 6,633 of these birds globally, with Shenzhen Bay alone hosting 299, making it the world’s third-largest habitat for the species.

Beyond wildlife benefits, mangroves offer critical ecosystem services such as coastal protection, carbon sequestration and water purification, contributing to climate change mitigation and resilience against natural disasters. According to one government report, every 100 hectares of mangroves in Shenzhen Bay absorbs nearly 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. The rerouting of rain and sewage flow has improved water quality, increasing animal and microbial diversity and enhancing the ecosystem’s resilience against extreme weather events.

“Shenzhen’s comprehensive approach to environmental management has positioned it as a leader in urban sustainability,” said Ma Jun, director at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), an environmental organisation based in Beijing. Shenzhen has one of the lowest pollution rates in China. “Shenzhen’s initiatives have helped it perform very well on the [IPE] Beautiful City Index, underscoring the city’s role as a model for others to follow,” Ma added.

A positive side-effect of a population invested in birds is the shift in public attitudes towards conservation, subsequently influencing government policy on habitat preservation. In June, China’s National Development and Reform Commission released an action plan for migratory bird flyway protection and restoration, addressing critical challenges in southern China’s wetlands, including human interference, habitat fragmentation, degradation and invasive species. The plan aims to protect 90% of habitats along migratory bird flyways by 2030, establishing a comprehensive national conservation network.

There has been an increase in birdwatching that is not unique to Shenzhen. The number of birdwatchers across China has increased more than tenfold in the past decade, with the 2023 census putting the number of birdwatchers at 340,000, up from 20,000 in 2010.

Lu Li, head of the Wild Bird Society, a Beijing-based birdwatching group, highlighted the growing impact of this trend. “As birdwatching becomes more popular, people’s attitudes towards bird conservation and habitat protection improve,” she said. In places like Yunnan, Jiangsu and Beijing, birdwatchers have played a significant role in shaping policy advocacy and planning. She told Dialogue Earth: “Now, when the government undertakes certain projects, there is an increasing consideration to preserve habitats for birds.” Ultimately, what benefits birds also benefits people.

Future challenges to conservation efforts

Despite Shenzhen’s successes, multiple threats to its mangroves and bird populations remain. As the city expands, the pressure on natural habitats continues to intensify.

Sponge cities are one innovative solution that has emerged. These aim to address stormwater run-off in urban areas through green infrastructure, such as permeable pavements, green roofs, rain gardens and constructed wetlands. These measures help to prevent flooding and reduce pollutants that can harm waterways including wetlands and mangroves.

Jianbin Shi, a wetland expert at the Paulson Institute, noted that “industrial wastewater is perhaps the greatest threat to wetlands” across the Pearl River Delta, where birds also face risks from colliding into skyscrapers. Historically, land reclamations have been used to curb rising house prices, a temptation that could return with increasing population pressures, despite existing regulatory bans. Although for now, the opposite seems to be true. Despite beating expectations with 5.3% GP in 2023, China’s economic recovery remains unsteady. With fewer houses being sold, the government is currently focused on encouraging house buying rather than resorting to land reclamation.

The long-awaited Shenzhen Wetland Protection Plan (2021-2035), which aims to enhance wetland protection and establish Shenzhen as an international wetland city, is still being drafted; a finalised version is not expected before July 2024. Making it available to the public will foster accountability and assist in strategic planning. Accelerating the timeline for the world’s first international mangrove centre – to be built in Shenzhen in collaboration with Ramsar – would also help.

Addressing these challenges will better position Shenzhen to navigate the complexities of urban development while maintaining its commitment to mangrove protection. In the meantime, ongoing public engagement and education programmes will help sustain conservation efforts, making environmental preservation a shared responsibility. The Futian Mangrove Ecological Park offers a template that promotes transparency, community participation and scalability for broader application in China and beyond.

Ma Jun emphasised the importance of continued commitment: “Shenzhen’s environmental strategy serves as a blueprint for sustainable urban development. Continued efforts in public education and technological integration will be crucial for future success.”

This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth with the title “How China’s most ‘futuristic’ city restored its mangroves” and has been reproduced under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

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The foundation for China’s sustained economic recovery and growth is not solid enough,” stated Premier Li Qiang in the government’s work report published on 5 March.

The report is the central part of China’s “Two Sessions” meetings. Delivered by the premier, it outlines government achievements from the past year and sets goals and directions for the coming year. It is also usually when the country’s GDP growth target for the year is announced.

Over the last year, China’s GDP grew 5.2%, achieving the target, with urban unemployment dropping from 5.6% to 5.2%. Although the data shows the economy recovering, China is still facing challenges, including a sluggish real estate market and a lack of domestic consumer demand. Even the “new three” products of solar cells, lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles, which were the highlight of 2023’s growth, may come under pressure from the EU’s carbon border tax.

With China now in the last two years of the current Five Year Plan period (2021-25), it faces increasing pressure to balance economic growth with emission-reduction targets. Against this backdrop, four key areas emerged from the government work report: improving carbon emissions accounting and trading; betting on cutting-edge tech to drive economic development; driving renewable energy growth; and consolidating achievements in combatting air pollution.

Green transition: Carbon disclosure is key

This year’s government work report heavily emphasised green transformation and low-carbon development, highlighting “improving carbon accounting and verification capacities” and “developing a carbon footprint management system” as top priorities.

Data is crucial. With the EU levelling the playing field on emissions-intensive products by introducing measures like its carbon border tax and a directive on “empowering consumers for the green transition”, there’s a growing push for Chinese enterprises to adopt greener supply chains and enhance their emissions data disclosure.

Furthermore, countries are preparing to submit their new climate action plans under the Paris Agreement in 2025.

The focus in the work report on emission data also reflects the need to expand the national carbon market to cover sectors beyond power. Operational since July 2021, China’s emissions trading scheme includes 2,257 enterprises in the power sector. Experts note the market’s low liquidity and trading volume.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, told China Dialogue that one of the reasons China’s carbon market has not expanded beyond power as quickly as expected is that emission data accounting is more complex in steel and petrochemicals than in electricity.

“By improving the carbon emission accounting and verification mechanism, we can accelerate the expansion of the carbon market and help China’s related industries better respond to changes in international trade rules,” said Ma. “At the same time, to fully exploit the potential of the carbon market, we need to ensure that the carbon price reflects its true cost and encourage enterprises to slash their emissions. We still have a lot of work to do in these areas.”

Betting on new tech: ‘New productive forces’

The concept of “new productive forces” was a new entry in this year’s government work report. It reflects China’s attempt to transform economic stimulation, from relying on infrastructure, real estate and heavy industry, to encouraging enterprises to develop breakthrough technologies.

The scope of new productive forces was clarified at the Central Economic Work Conference last December. Some of the sectors mentioned included digital economy, artificial intelligence, bio-manufacturing, commercial aerospace, quantum computing and life sciences.

Although the Two Sessions proposed to “scale up the supply of government-subsidised housing”, it does not mean China will return to the old development path, according to Wang Yao, dean of the International Institute of Green Finance at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing. “The Chinese government is regulating the overcapacity problem in industries such as steel and cement. Companies are becoming more rational and will not blindly launch new projects or expand capacity,” Wang Yao said.

“China has begun to downplay the goal of economic growth rate, shifting its focus towards the quality of growth and trying to balance both in the growth process,” Chen Ying, a researcher at the Institute of Ecological Civilisation of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tells China Dialogue.

“New productive forces” encompass more than just tech products or breakthroughs, it also implies worker upskilling and “complementary policy support”, Chen Ying said.

Low-carbon tech is the major focus. In February, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) jointly issued the “National Key Low-Carbon Technology Collection and Promotion Implementation Plan,” aiming to promote low-carbon tech nationwide by 2025.

According to Wang Yao, “the introduction of ‘new productive forces’ will inspire all kinds of enterprises to enhance innovation-driven development, pursue low-carbon operations and transformation, to achieve high-quality sustainable development.”

Carbon peaking: Energy intensity in focus

The government work report emphasises the need to carry out the “Ten Actions to Peak Carbon”. These feature in the Peak Carbon by 2030 Action Plan issued by the State Council in 2021. That plan specifies three 2025 targets related to energy and emissions: the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach about 20%; energy intensity will decrease by 13.5% compared to 2020; and carbon intensity will decrease by 18% compared to 2020. The three targets can be seen as yardsticks of China’s progress toward carbon peaking.

This year’s target for energy intensity was included in the government work report – a reduction of about 2.5%.

Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, believes that a 2.5% decline is not enough to achieve the targeted 13.5% drop in energy intensity by 2025.

“To achieve the 2025 energy-intensity-reduction target means that at least a 4.5% decline is needed in each of this and next year,” Myllyvirta told China Dialogue. “And significantly more to hit the 18% carbon-intensity target.”

Carbon intensity can be reduced either by reducing the amount of energy used per unit of economic output or by reducing CO2 emissions per unit of energy use.

China’s energy intensity and carbon intensity barely fell last year, according to the latest National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data. This was due to a number of reasons. Last year was the first of China’s post-pandemic recovery and witnessed an explosion of production and travel demand. There were also frequent weather extremes, with high temperatures in the summer and cold snaps in the winter, leading to more energy consumption. China’s coal power and crude oil consumption grew by 5.6% and 9.1%, respectively, the data stated.

“Natural gas has lower carbon emissions than coal,” said Chen Ying of the Institute of Ecological Civilisation. “Western countries are transitioning by first replacing coal with natural gas and then developing renewable energy. However, we have insufficient natural gas resources and cannot follow the Western path. Instead, we must vigorously develop renewable energy. At the same time, to ensure the safety and stability of the power system, many new coal power projects have started construction. This is a temporary transition pain and will not shake the general trend of green and low-carbon energy.”

Ma Jun believes the Chinese government has always been cautious about setting targets. Although the 2.5% energy-intensity-reduction target is conservative, its appearance in the government work report will bring pressure and a sense of urgency. Even if reaching the 14th Five Year Plan energy-intensity target is very difficult, China is going to push hard to achieve it anyway.

With the increasing share of non-fossil energy in the energy mix, China has shifted its path on achieving peak carbon. Previously, it encouraged “dual controls” – on energy intensity and total energy consumption. Now, it promotes reductions in carbon intensity and emissions.

However, in this transformation process, there has been a tendency to ignore the need to reduce energy intensity and consumption, Ma Jun explains. The energy intensity of energy-hungry industries such as steel has increased instead of declining, resulting in a year-on-year increase in coal consumption. Some regions have launched energy-hungry projects such as petrochemicals and coal chemicals. This, coupled with the decline in GDP growth, has resulted in a lax control of energy intensity and carbon emissions. At the end of 2023, provinces such as Hubei, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Zhejiang, Anhui, Guangdong and Chongqing were criticised by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) for failing to achieve energy intensity and total energy consumption targets.

In February of this year, the NDRC, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the National Energy Administration jointly issued a document clarifying that non-fossil energy will not be included in the regulation of total energy consumption and intensity.

Myllyvirta told China Dialogue: “If the energy-intensity reduction target only looks at the total consumption of fossil energy in the calculation, then a 9% reduction in energy intensity by 2025 will be sufficient, rather than 13.5%.”

The biggest highlight in terms of China’s decarbonisation progress in 2023 is reflected in the accelerated development of new energy and related industries. In June 2023, China’s total installed capacity of wind, solar and hydropower exceeded 1.3 billion kilowatts, historically exceeding the installed capacity of coal power. By the end of 2023, more than half of the world’s electric vehicles were being driven in China, with the total number reaching 20 million.

“This year’s government work report especially emphasises the energy revolution, aiming to achieve a green transformation of growth patterns through vigorous development of renewable energy and new-energy-related industries,” Ma Jun said. “While transforming the energy structure and making energy cleaner, we must also strengthen energy conservation in traditional industries. Only by addressing both can we accelerate the process of industrial decarbonisation and improve the efficiency of [emission peaking and reduction] actions.”

Air quality: Consolidating a decade of achievement

Attention on “air quality” has appeared again in the government work report, after last year’s only briefly mentioned it in terms of governance achievements.

The inclusion may be related to the rebound in air pollution in China last year. Average PM2.5 levels rose year-on-year for the first time after a decade of improvements. PM2.5 increased in 26 provincial capital cities, including Beijing, and 40% of cities across the country had PM2.5 exceeding the national standard of 35 micrograms per cubic metre.

Ma Jun attributed this rebound to a combination of unfavourable factors. Last year, China experienced a shift from La Niña to El Niño natural climate phenomena, with pollution spreading unfavourably due to weather conditions, a once-in-a-decade sandstorm, and economic recovery after the pandemic leading to an increase in emissions from energy, industry and transportation.

Even so, China’s air quality trends show significant improvement compared to before the pandemic. China’s PM2.5 in 2023 was 6 micrograms per cubic metre lower than in 2019, an improvement of 16.7 %, said Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment, at a Two Sessions press conference.

“Under all the unfavourable conditions, China has stuck to its bottom line of [improving] environmental quality and consolidated the 10-year achievement in environment governance,” Ma Jun said.

Although there are no quantitative targets for air-quality improvement in the government work report, the policies and measures mentioned in it contain specific targets. For example, the Action Plan for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality sets 2025 targets for lowering PM2.5 concentration, number of polluted days, and total pollutant emissions.

This article was originally published on China Dialogue with the title “Two Sessions: What it Means for China’s Climate Policy in 2024” and has been reproduced under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

The post What do the Two Sessions mean for China’s climate policy in 2024? appeared first on Focus - China Britain Business Council.

The COP28 UN climate conference, taking place from 30 November to 12 December in Dubai, will bring countries together to discuss measures to reduce warming emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.

The key topic of the conference is likely to be how to close the gap between current plans for emission reduction and what is needed to put the world on a path to rein in global warming.

Experts have told China Dialogue that China will face “increasing pressure” at COP28 on issues such as enhancing its climate action, as well as its involvement in the “loss and damage” fund, designed to compensate countries in the global south for unavoidable climate change impacts. At the same time, they expect China to push the world to meet more ambitious goals for both renewable energy development and loss and damage.

Ahead of COP28, experts see collaboration between the US and China as key to combating global warming. So will they deliver another joint message of unity on climate action, as they did at the Paris and Glasgow COPs of 2015 and 2021?

A world falling short on climate action

The collective effort of countries to lower emissions is insufficient to meet the 1.5°C or 2°C warming thresholds decided at the 2015 Paris COP. That was the verdict of a recent report on the UN’s first stocktake of global climate action. It offered guidance on how plans – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – towards reaching the Paris goals might be updated and enhanced.

According to the report, to keep the 1.5°C target achievable, by 2030, the world needs to have reduced its annual emissions by a further 20.3-23.9 billion tonnes of CO2 compared to current NDC commitments.

There will naturally be concern about whether China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, will update its NDC and step up efforts to reduce emissions. But experts say that, given it did so in 2020, it may not do so significantly again any time soon. Chris Aylett, coordinator of the Environment and Society Centre at UK-based think-tank Chatham House, says China’s focus is on the enormous task of implementation, rolling out the policies and technologies needed to meet the carbon peaking and neutrality targets set by President Xi in 2020.

However, this doesn’t mean there won’t be pressure on China at COP28 to do more, Aylett notes. The EU has recently called on China to commit to the Global Methane Pledge, launched at Glasgow COP26 in 2021, as well as to the global goal of tripling renewable energy deployment by 2030, featured in the recent G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration. The US has called on China to contribute to multilateral climate finance, something it has resisted thus far on the principle that as a developing country, which it defines itself as, it is not required to.

“China has an established preference for underpromising and overdelivering on its climate targets, and has made clear that it will not yield to external pressure,” Aylett explains. “In parallel, Chinese officials have been critical of what they consider ‘rich-world underperformance’ on climate change.”

China could, however, announce some additional measures such as its own long-awaited methane control plan, and a raised target for renewable energy installed capacity, says Li Shuo, senior global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia.

In the joint declaration made with the US in Glasgow, China stated it would create a comprehensive national action plan to reduce methane emissions from fossil energy sources, the waste sector, and agriculture. The central government says the plan is still being developed, while industry insiders say a draft has long been finalised. The delay in announcing it may have been influenced by the rocky US–China relationship or China’s negotiating tactics on climate issues.

While the release of the methane plan is slightly behind schedule, the growth in China’s installed wind and solar power is significantly ahead. Given this trend, Li Shuo said, “it is widely believed that it will be no problem at all to reach the wind and solar installation targets in China’s NDC. So, will China raise this target? Such expectations still exist.”

China has an established preference for underpromising and overdelivering on its climate targets, and has made clear that it will not yield to external pressure
Chris Aylett, Chatham House

Contributing to global renewable energy targets

The success of the climate conference will be measured in part by how well it moves the needle on the fossil fuel phasedown, and whether more ambitious renewable energy deployment targets are set.

Aylett thinks China is unlikely to sign up to the language of fossil fuel ‘phaseout’ that the EU and others will advocate for at COP28. Meanwhile, Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for climate change affairs, has said that phasing out fossil fuels is “unrealistic”. Following the severe power outages the country experienced in 2021, estimated to have affected as much as 44% of industrial activity, Chinese energy policy is today organised around the principle of “establishing the new before destroying the old” – retiring fossil fuel infrastructure only when the new low-carbon system is fully in place.

However, as the world’s number one manufacturer of solar panels and wind turbines, Aylett thinks China “certainly has an incentive” to push for a more ambitious renewables target.

In the first half of this year, the country’s wind and solar installed capacity reached 820 gigawatts (GW). Meanwhile, its total renewable power capacity exceeded 1,300 GW, or 48.8% of total power capacity, putting it ahead of coal power. China’s wind and solar power is expected to reach its 1,200 GW target by 2025, five years earlier than planned, found a report by think-tank Global Energy Monitor.

China has the potential to push the world to reach a more ambitious 2030 target for renewable energy installations under the UN’s climate process, says Yao Zhe, strategic communications director at the Institute for Global Decarbonisation Progress (iGDP), a Beijing-based think-tank.

At the G20 Summit in September, nations including China agreed to “pursue and encourage efforts” to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and “accelerate efforts towards phasedown of unabated coal power”. But it set no binding, country-specific climate targets.

According to Yao Zhe, if the world can agree on a target for installed renewable energy capacity at COP28, it would favour China given the country’s domestic progress on this front. “Having such an expectation will drive the market, which will benefit China’s industrial exports, as well as cooperation with supply chains in other countries,” said Yao Zhe.

US–China climate cooperation

Whether China and the US can make new progress in climate cooperation will be a major point of interest at the COP. Since 2013, when the US-China Climate Change Working Group was established, climate issues have generally been a cooperation “safe zone”. John Kerry, the US president’s special envoy on climate change, has repeatedly said that climate is a key mutual issue, independent of any disagreements the two countries may have.

Kerry’s visit to China in July marked the first time the two countries have touched on climate matters since the suspension of US-China climate talks in August last year. Since then, the world has been waiting for China and the US to resume working together on climate issues.

Li Shuo told China Dialogue that if relations remain stable for the rest of the year, the two countries may issue a joint statement at COP28 that includes unilateral, bilateral and multilateral elements. This would follow the example of the joint presidential statement made in the lead up to the successful Paris COP of 2015, as well as the Glasgow statement of 2021.

The two countries could announce measures on climate assistance and investment, overseas energy, as well as cooperation on joint research and information sharing regarding low-carbon technologies like carbon capture and storage, Li Shuo says, adding that because US-China climate talks are ongoing, it may be challenging for the two sides to reach a joint statement under the current complicated international situation. “Even if a joint statement can be reached, it will be difficult for it to be as groundbreaking as the 2015 [one]. It may be more about paving the way for negotiations rather than setting the tone for the global process.”

Aylett thinks the value of US–China talks is arguably more symbolic than substantive. “They represent the importance of putting differences to one side to tackle a shared challenge, and keep alive the spirit of cooperation between the two superpowers that was critical to the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015,” he said.

China can play a big role in enabling the rollout of renewable energy across the African regionMarina Agortimevor, African Coal Network

Loss and damage, and alternatives

Whether or not China will inject money into the “loss and damage” fund – designed to compensate developing countries for unavoidable climate impacts – has been the focus of international attention.

African countries have been pushing developed ones to contribute to loss and damage compensation. A report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) predicts that Africa’s loss and damage for 2020-2030 will cost between US$290 billion and $440 billion.

According to the UN climate process principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, states are not equally responsible for addressing global environmental destruction, and China’s ‘developing country’ status means it is not obliged to pay into the fund. However, since the formation of the convention 30 years ago, the country’s economic position and emissions have grown rapidly, and it is currently the second-largest economy and top emitter. This has led developed economies such as the US and European Union to argue that it should also pay into the fund.

China’s Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua declared at last year’s COP27 that China does not have the “responsibility” to contribute financially to loss and damage. But given the large sums China has invested in building infrastructure overseas through its Belt and Road Initiative, there is clear potential for it to contribute further towards supporting development in Africa.

“China can play a big role in enabling the rollout of renewable energy across the African region,” says Marina Agortimevor, coordinator of the African Coal Network, a network of civil society organisations working on the energy transition.

She believes Africa could benefit from China’s support for renewable energy, not only in terms of infrastructure, but also skills and technology development. “We’ve seen the possibility of a comprehensive strategy around renewable energy that includes job creation, enabling local manufacturing and skills development.”

The same is true for developing infrastructure that reduces and adapts to climate change.

Aylett says, in lieu of paying into the loss and damage fund, China can contribute to the fund’s overarching aim, of enabling vulnerable countries to recover from climate impacts, by directing investment and technical cooperation under the BRI towards climate-resilient development. If substantial and sufficiently visible, this could increase the pressure on developed countries to do more, he adds.

Recently, China released a white paper, “Policies and Actions to Address Climate Change”, in which it stated that the country would push for COP28 to reach a decision on a global framework of adaptation targets, and finalise the financial mechanism for loss and damage and related financing arrangements.

Yao Zhe told China Dialogue that, along with other big emitters, China will continue to be under pressure from the international community on loss and damage this year. “China would like to see less finger-pointing and pressure,” she believes.

At the last COP, Yao says, some developed countries shifted attention to large developing emitters in order to reduce pressure on themselves. This kind of practice cannot solve the problem and can undermine mutual trust, she says. Nevertheless, China can play a crucial role in promoting more constructive communication on loss and damage, she adds.

A beefed-up Chinese delegation

For Chinese attendees, COP28 will be the first normal UN climate conference since the pandemic began. At COP27 last year, outbound travel restrictions reduced China’s delegation to fewer than 80 people. By comparison, the largest delegation, from the United Arab Emirates, had 1,073. The China Office and China Corner were situated in a remote part of the conference venue, relatively far away from the media centre and side event stalls.

Humoured, Xie Zhenhua remarked that the layout of the venue was arranged by the organisers, not individual countries: “My pedometer shows that I walk an average of more than 13,000 steps a day … I don’t want to walk so far either, but I take it as my daily exercise.”

Xie will continue to lead the Chinese delegation this year, which is likely to comprise more people than in Egypt. Chinese non-governmental organisations and enterprises of all kinds have also expressed enthusiasm about participating in the conference and rebooting international exchanges.

Yao Zhe’s organisation, iGDP, will participate as part of civil society in the side events hosted at the China Pavilion. The themes of this year’s events include climate investment and finance, mitigation, adaptation, and digital transformation. There will be a special session for businesses and industries, hosted by provinces and cities that are making rapid progress in mitigation and adaptation, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Private companies including LONGi, Tencent, Alibaba and Vanke will be in attendance.

The pavilion will also host a day themed around renewable energy, inviting domestic energy enterprises to share China’s experience in solar and wind power and hydrogen storage, according to a report in The Paper. Yao points out that this reflects how Chinese companies, both state-owned and private, are paying more attention to climate change, and showing more commitment to providing solutions.

“The Chinese delegation is very willing to show the international community the progress of China’s domestic action on climate change and low-carbon transition,” she adds.

This article was originally published on China Dialogue with the title “COP28 Preview: China in the World’s Spotlight” and has been reproduced under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

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Developing countries have a “huge interest” in Chinese companies and institutions helping with their green energy development, experts have told China Dialogue. But there has yet to be a surge of renewable energy projects finalised under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global infrastructure programme, they said.

Experts spoke to China Dialogue two years after President Xi Jinping promised a shift towards greener overseas energy investments, and ahead of the BRI’s 10th anniversary this autumn.

The slow progress for renewable projects could be down to a range of factors, they explained, such as the long time it takes for deals to be negotiated, expectations realigned and strategies updated, within both China and BRI member countries.

Nevertheless, a few high-profile clean energy projects have been announced this year. They include a 123-megawatt (MW) solar farm in South Africa, to be constructed by Power China; a 50 MW wind farm in Namibia, that has received investment from a consortium led by Energy China; and a 600 MW solar farm in Saudi Arabia, being built by Energy China.

New coal-fired power projects have largely been halted, but a few projects slipped through the net because of “loopholes”, the experts added.

Ditching coal (almost)

At a UN meeting in September 2021, Xi announced that “China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power plants abroad”.

Since then, no new investments in coal power plants have been recorded under the BRI, according to the China Overseas Finance Inventory, which tracks Chinese equity and debt investments in the power generation sector. The database is a collaborative effort between five US universities and institutes, and contains transaction details of 652 investments in 569 power plants across 87 BRI countries.

“There is huge interest in having Chinese manufacturers, developers and state-owned enterprises going out and supporting the green energy transition. This is a change,” Christoph Nedopil, an expert in green finance and the BRI, told China Dialogue.

The interest mostly comes from host countries and partly from Chinese companies wanting to be closer to their customers and avoid potential trade restrictions, among other reasons, Nedopil said.

“Most Chinese state-owned companies and banks I know are not interested in coal projects anymore,” he added. “This was not true in 2020, when there was still a lot of talk about the need for coal.”

The shift in mindset can also be found in a lot of host countries, he noted. “The understanding is that coal is less relevant.”

Nedopil is director of the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. When China Dialogue spoke with him, he was director of the Green Finance and Development Centre (GDFC) at Fanhai International School of Finance, part of Fudan University, in Shanghai. At the GFDC, he published a series of reports analysing BRI investments.

The GFDC’s latest assessment found that China’s energy-related “engagement” – meaning construction and investment – under the BRI in the first half of 2023 was the “greenest” for any six-month period since the initiative’s launch in 2013.

The report looked at the share of renewable projects in all-energy engagement, which includes power generation and exploration of resources related to energy. It found that nearly 56% of the US$12.3 billion that China spent on energy projects during the period went into renewable sources, with 41% going into solar and wind, and 14% into hydropower.

However, some experts emphasised that not all new coal power projects have been scrapped. While Xi’s announcement was “certainly a step in the right direction”, a few projects are still moving ahead, such as a 300 MW coal power plant in Pakistan and a 1.5-gigawatt (GW) plant in Indonesia, Blake Berger, associate director at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, told China Dialogue.

“This is where the loopholes begin to come into play,” Berger noted. The plant on Obi, an island in eastern Indonesia, dodged the axe because it was designed as an internal facility of an industrial park instead of a standalone coal power project. On the other hand, the project in Gwadar, in southwestern Pakistan, is not considered “new” by Chinese and Pakistani officials as it was first proposed in 2016 but repeatedly delayed.

Long renegotiation processes

Although many coal power projects have been called off, there has not been a wave of renewable projects coming in to fill the space, some experts noted.

“There have been no major changes,” said Wang Xiaojun, founder of People of Asia for Climate Solutions, a Manila-based non-profit organisation. This was the case “no matter [whether] we count the number of renewable energy projects that has been signed, or China’s total overseas investments on renewable energy projects – or even the types of new renewable energy projects that were built by host countries.”

Although many thermal power projects have been halted, they have not been transformed into renewable energy projects — Wang Xiaojun, founder of People of Asia for Climate Solutions

One possible cause for the “vacuum” – as Xiaojun put it – is the fact that Xi’s one-line pledge did not specify how coal power projects in the pipeline should be dealt with.

The issue, which remains to be explained clearly, has likely caused the Chinese government and host countries to spend a long time renegotiating those projects, Wang said. “Many previously committed coal projects might be under renegotiation to be converted into renewable energy projects,” he explained.

Other experts point out that it takes time for a government mandate to show impact on the ground. Oyintarelado Moses, data analyst for the Global China Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Centre, cited the BRI itself as an example. After the initiative was introduced in 2013, it took about three years for large volumes of financing to arrive, she told China Dialogue.

The GDP Centre runs a database that mostly follows the financing from China’s development finance institutions, such as the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank. The database did not record any energy projects finalised after Xi’s announcement in September 2021.

“I think we are still in that initial time lag period of [Xi’s] announcement. I do expect there to be more low-carbon and renewable energy projects from 2023,” she added.

Host countries also need time to realign their national energy strategies and make decisions on old and new projects, according to Shen Wei, director of the Green BRI Centre of the International Institute of Green Finance at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing.

“A country’s energy strategy is often the result of long-[term] research and preparation by relevant government departments,” Shen told China Dialogue.

“Even though a country’s government halts its plan for an old coal power plant, researching and formulating a new plan is a very complex process and involves a lot of practical questions.” Should the project be in renewable energy, questions might include the type, location, and capacity, Shen said.

Other challenges include the lack of “supportive infrastructure” in some countries, particularly reliable power grids that can take in renewable power – which can be unpredictable and unstable – while still running safely, according to Shen.

The push for ‘small but beautiful’ projects

Renewable energy projects are often much smaller in scale than coal power plants. This means that Chinese energy investors, banks and developers need to apply new business logic and approaches to them.

Chinese state-owned banks are “having to learn how to structure new deals that are focused on renewable energy projects”, said Moses.

China has prompted state-owned enterprises, particularly those directly run by the central government, to adjust their strategies. In February, Zhao Shitang, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, instructed central-level state-owned enterprises to “incubate a batch of small but beautiful projects with good economic and social benefits” under the BRI, with a focus on areas such as green, health and digital.

That was the first time the phrase “small but beautiful” had appeared in the narrative of the BRI, according to Xiaojun, who described the instruction as “a very good change”.

“‘Small but beautiful’ renewable energy projects, such as distributed, flexible and off-grid projects, can meet the energy demands of host countries and provide a huge stage for Chinese private companies,” Xiaojun commented. “This should be the future direction of energy investments for China under the BRI.”

He called for more government backing for Chinese private companies to help them “play to their full strength … Whether it is policy or financial support, I hope the government can enable private companies to invest in energy projects faster and more flexibly overseas.”

Turning to renewable projects also brings the Chinese into a more competitive investment space, said Nedopil. Previously, China, Japan and Korea were more or less the only providers of technology and public financing for overseas coal power plants.

“If you work on renewable energy, there are a lot more potential investors and technology providers, not only from China, but other countries as well,” he said.

‘Traffic light system’

Several Chinese and international organisations have published useful tools for evaluating the environmental impacts of BRI projects and guiding Chinese companies to invest in more sustainable ways.

One of them is the Green Development Guidance for BRI projects, a collaborative research effort launched in 2019, two years before Xi’s announcement on ending support for new coal overseas.

The series of studies is being led by the Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition, which was initiated by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and comprises more than 40 companies, associations, thinktanks and non-governmental organisations from China and around the world.

The guidance is also known as the “traffic light system” because it assesses BRI projects using colour-coded labels based on their impacts on climate, ecology and the environment. Green stands for projects that should be encouraged, yellow indicates neutral ones, and red for those that require stricter supervision and regulation.

The first phase of this effort, which was published in December 2020, red-flagged coal-fired power projects, explained Wang Ye, an associate of the Finance Centre and China Sustainable Investment Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI) China, which co-leads the project. This red flagging supported policy guidance “towards transformative development in China’s overseas energy investments on stopping building [of] new coal power plants overseas,” said Ye.

In the third report of the project, published in May, researchers analysed the role of foreign investment cooperation funds in greening the BRI. These are official funds established by China to meet the financing needs for sustainable development in developing countries. Examples include the China-ASEAN Investment Cooperation Fund, China-Africa Development Fund, and China-Latin America and the Caribbean Cooperation Fund.

“All three funds primarily invest in energy, infrastructure construction and manufacturing capacity, sectors [that are] key to the green transition,” noted Ye.

She underscored the importance of such funds: “How they evaluate projects and manage clients are crucial for aligning investment decisions with local needs, concretising their commitment to sustainability, and shifting financing to green projects.”

Asia Society, a non-profit organisation with offices in the US, Asia, Oceania and Europe, has developed a digital “toolkit” to help local communities and companies involved in the BRI ensure that their projects are “mutually beneficial, equitable, inclusive, and environmentally and socially sustainable”.

Available in five languages – English, Mandarin, Khmer, Lao and Bahasa Indonesia – the toolkit focuses on two “critical aspects”: how to undertake environmental and social impact assessments, and how to ensure engagement from stakeholders throughout the project.

“We designed the toolkit to empower local communities with information to better safeguard and defend their own interest, and to help companies involved in these projects undertake these critical aspects of due diligence in a more systematic way,” the Asia Society’s Blake Berger said.

“We found that even minor adjustments in how projects are undertaken can have a sizeable impact on long-term sustainability of the project and receptiveness of the local population,” he added.

How to go further

Looking into the near future, experts listed several types of renewable projects they wanted to see more of under the BRI.

“One is the local manufacturing of goods related to energy transition,” said Nedopil. His report found that there were not many engagements in the manufacturing of equipment needed for green energy transition under the BRI. “I do hope to see more of these engagements – for example, the manufacturing of solar panels.”

Nedopil also said he hoped to see China step up its support for BRI countries by improving their power grids and helping their existing coal plants retire early.

Xiaojun underlined the importance of a growth in “capacity building” in BRI countries by Chinese companies, such as facilitating technological transfer and relocating some of their renewable supply chains there.

In his view, these moves “can help Chinese companies mitigate some potential supply chain risks, as well as nurture the host countries’ labour market and create electricity demand”.

Training local talent is even more important, he pointed out.

“For the construction of BRI power projects, Chinese companies usually bring their own workers, including technicians, from home.” But moving forward, Chinese companies can train workforces locally, while Chinese universities can also offer electricity and renewable courses for young people from BRI countries, Xiaojun said.

“These practices can truly transform a country: to stop it being a climate victim and help it become a climate victor,” he concluded.

This article was originally published on China Dialogue under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

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At the 75th General Assembly of the UN, China announced that it was committing to reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. President Xi Jinping called for all countries to commit to innovative green development, stating that exploiting the environment with little concern for conservation was no longer an option.

Beijing is still thought of outside of China as one of the most polluted places on earth, but PM2.5 emissions – the main issue for the city – are a third of what they were a decade ago, with the falling trend continuing. The skies have turned blue, and we can, in part, attribute this improvement to China’s huge investment in green energy, a field in which the country has rapidly become a world leader. This has resulted in it becoming effectively essential to global green energy supply chains.

PV energy supply chains

No sector highlights China’s centrality to global renewable energy more than the solar energy industry. China currently supplies around 90% of the world’s photovoltaic modules, giving the country tremendous leverage over future energy markets globally.

If you need tangible evidence of China’s investment in renewable energy, look no further than Golmud Solar Park in Qinghai province. With a capacity of 2.8 gigawatts, it is the largest solar power plant in the world. It is, however, not the only mega solar power plant in the country. The Tenger Desert Solar Park in Ningxia province has a capacity of 1.5 gigawatts and spreads across 43 square kilometres.

China is the world’s largest exporter of renewable energy infrastructure, responsible for 90% of the global photovoltaic cell supply and 50% of wind turbines. This means that China is absolutely essential to the global renewable energy market. With increasing pressure from international organisations such as the IPCC to take the climate crisis more seriously in at least the short to mid-term, China is effectively the green energy transition factory until other countries grow their renewable energy manufacturing sectors.

The pace at which China has become the key player in global PV supply is as startling as its current scale. A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows how, between 2010 and 2021, China’s share of global demand skyrocketed from 3.5% to 36%. Meanwhile, former spearhead Europe toppled from representing 80.4% of global demand to a mere 16.8%. Over the same period, the share of every core element in the supply chain has become concentrated in China.

Source – IEA

This pole position was achieved through a number of factors, the first of which is huge investment. China was responsible for nearly half of global clean energy investment in 2022, investing US$ 546 billion. The EU, as the second largest spender on clean energy, invested US$ 180 billion, less than a third of China’s total.

Then comes economies of scale. China has fulfilled a role as ‘the world’s factory’ for decades now and has formidable manufacturing expertise. It also has the space to build infrastructure at a scale unfeasible for most countries, as proven by its PV mega projects.

China’s geographical size and characteristics mean it has an abundance of the raw materials essential to PV components. The charts above from the IEA show, for example, how China has increased its production of polysilicon to over three quarters of the global supply. Data from Statista show that 98% of Europe’s rare earth imports (which it does not produce itself) originated from China in 2021.

China’s green transition and the UK

China may be ahead in zero-carbon technologies, but for the UK, there is an opportunity for collaboration. Thankfully, the potential and will are high, with each country offering its own expertise and sharing a common goal in leading the pursuit of carbon neutrality.

The urgency of the green transition adds to competition in both an economic and political sense, and China sees opportunity in this. Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the LSE Grantham Research Institute, told FOCUS: “China recognises the green transition as a race. The growing market for zero-carbon technologies and materials is a massive new economic opportunity. China has recognised this and is moving ahead more quickly than many of its competitors, including Europe and the US.”

On a global level, competition with China could play a key role in driving down the cost of the transition. “Competition can help to bring costs down further. Some people have argued that if China drops the costs so dramatically, it effectively puts everyone else out of business,” Ward added. “We have seen in the past companies seeking to develop monopolies – they put their competitors out of business and then control the costs and can put up prices. The experience with Solar PV is that China didn’t do that. They are simply aiming to beat everyone and become the world’s supplier.”

Although progress may have slowed, partnerships between the UK and China in green energy go back a decade. In 2013, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government signed an MoU for cooperation in offshore wind projects. Offshore wind is very much a success story of China-UK energy cooperation. The UK is considered a world leader in offshore energy, but behind the scenes is Chinese investment and energy storage projects. The largest lithium battery storage plant in Europe was set up in the UK in 2021 using technology from the Chinese firm Sungrow.

One of Sungrow’s most recent UK projects sees the transformation of a decommissioned coal energy plant into a green battery storage unit in Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire. It is expected to be able to supply the national grid with 300MWh of capacity upon completion in 2024. The project is thus more than a contribution to the UK grid – it has a symbolic value in tangibly transforming a site of former fossil fuel energy into a green one.

The UK is also a world leader in green finance, with London ranking as the top green financial centre globally in the 2023 Green Finance Index. This offers clear synergy with China’s capital-intensive manufacturing expertise and a potentially global reach of positive impact.

In a recent report, Baillie Gifford, a CBBC member company, long-term investor in China and ESG expert, states that despite the rapid growth in ESG investing and infrastructure to support it, there are still significant knowledge gaps to making sound ESG decisions in the China market. Among the points of their overall ESG due diligence checklist are specific sustainability questions: Does a company disclose carbon emissions and set a carbon reduction target? Is the company compliant with the UN Global Compact?

Baillie Gifford’s China Growth Trust 2023 report highlights the difference that targeted ESG finance can have on decarbonising investment. On a measure of weighted average carbon intensity comparing their China portfolio to an average index, the portfolio had an 85% lower carbon intensity. The portfolio includes multiple firms engaged in renewable energy supply chains, from component suppliers to EV battery producers.

The climate crisis is a global issue, demanding global cooperation. With green energy supply chains very much focused in China, the UK will need to collaborate if it is to meet its own green targets. As the London Environment strategy targets a carbon-neutral capital by 2050, much inspiration can be drawn from the newly blue skies of Beijing.

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Around the world, tech and finance companies have been laying staff off. In 2022, tech firms’ payrolls fell by 164,000 employees, with a further 166,000 jobs cut in the first quarter of 2023, according to tracking platform Layoffs.fyi. In China, youth unemployment is also rising, hitting 20% this April.

And yet for green employment, spring has come. The US, worst hit by the layoffs, saw over 100,000 green jobs advertised in the six months from last August. The share of green employment in the global total rose from 9.6% in 2015 to 13.3% in 2021, according to LinkedIn’s Green Skills Report.

In China, government plans to peak and neutralise national carbon emissions, and the push for a wholesale green transition has caused a boom in “green employment”. The sector is expected to employ 1 million people by 2025. There’s even hype online that these jobs can pay as much as 150,000 yuan (US$20,900) per month.

According to the 2023 update of the government’s Green Industry Guidance Catalogue, such industries include: energy-saving and carbon-reduction (a service mainly provided by tech companies to big corporations); environmental protection; recycling and reuse of resources; clean energy; ecological protection, restoration and utilisation; green upgrading of infrastructure; and green services (like environmental monitoring and impact assessing). Many of these are emerging sectors, steadily creating jobs.

Meanwhile, regulatory changes since last decade have prompted companies and institutional investors to set up sustainability or ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) departments, which require staff. Partly driven by such trends, other entities such as academic institutions and media also require more green talent.

Together, these form “green employment” – jobs directly in green industries or in other industries but with a green focus.

So, what do we know about green employment in China?

Policy drivers: Decarbonisation targets lead the way

The increase in green jobs is mostly down to policy changes. According to figures from the LinkedIn report, in 2021, there was a big jump in the number of job listings requiring green skills, with those ads accounting for half of the total, far more than the global average. And this came after the share of green jobs across all of China’s recruitment had actually been falling since 2017.

The bump may be linked to China’s commitment, made in September 2020, to reach carbon neutrality before 2060. Previously, the environmental sector was focused on air and water pollution and wildlife conservation. The decarbonisation target prompted a shift towards climate change.

A 2022 report on “decarbonisation employment” from the China-based Climate Action Youth Alliance (CAYA) found that while the emissions-related industry had come into being in 2005 with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, its size remained small. Even the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement only had a small impact on employment. Things finally changed with the 2060 target, as well as the “1+N” policy framework to guide China’s transition for the next four decades. (The “1” stands for a top-level Guiding Opinion issued in 2021, while the “N” refers to a set of more than 30 sector-specific decarbonisation plans). The number of people whose work is directly associated with the decarbonisation target has now risen from 10,000 to 100,000, according to Caijing magazine. By 2025, that figure is expected to be somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million.

Zhi Hanzhen, one of the authors of the CAYA report, now works on carbon neutrality and ESG issues for a leading internet company. She graduated with a degree in environmental economics in 2018, unsure of where to work. “Once carbon neutrality became a hot topic, a lot of former classmates came to me for job-hunting advice,” she told China Dialogue. “It’s a relatively new sector and it took me a while to find suitable work. That made me want to use the report to explain carbon employment issues.”

The report splits decarbonisation employment into four main fields: emissions management, emissions auditing, carbon trading, and carbon neutrality tech. Jobs are found in a range of sectors, including energy, industry, buildings, transportation and finance. The biggest employer among these is emissions management consulting, followed by emissions auditing. Most of the 121 survey respondents were working in consultancies or the ESG/sustainability department of companies that outsource their environmental reporting. Zhi Hanzhen also explained that other services are being developed, such as carbon-neutrality communications and training.

The market heats up: ESG and green finance take off

As policy and regulation improved, the green job market heated up and ESG became a hot topic within businesses. ESG covers environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity, as well as companies’ social impact and governance mechanisms. With regulation and public awareness of environmental issues on the rise, more and more companies set up ESG departments, bolstering their knowledge of social and environmental issues in their day-to-day operations, supply chain management, and disclosures. This helps firms avoid risks and protect brands – and so increase long-term profits. ESG jobs in big businesses or financial firms have become some of the best-paid green work available, making them popular with jobseekers.

Du Bowen, who recently started working for a UN body, told China Dialogue he has been lucky enough to find opportunities straddling the internet and ESG. Du became interested in public interest work as a student and did a master’s degree in humanitarian aid. He graduated in 2015 and spent four years working for two major charities, gaining experience in environmental protection, and poverty and hunger-reduction. He then joined Bytedance’s marketing department managing cooperation with international organisations for the video-sharing app TikTok. “TikTok set up a Corporate Social Responsibility department around 2020, and employed staff in Europe and the US. The background to this was oversight of internet platforms around the world,” Du explained.

For years, companies outside of directly green sectors like renewable energy saw ESG roles as non-profit-generating, and those employees were put in compliance or marketing departments. The rise of ESG is changing that. According to a 2021 report from Syntao, 1,092 A-listed firms in China (25.3% of the total) published ESG reports in 2020. Regulators and the public read those reports carefully, and the skills and time required to write them has increased, meaning more demand for staff with green skills.

You can’t solve environmental and social issues by relying on people’s goodwill — Du Bowen, UN worker

Investors are also piling on the pressure. Data show that China already has over 130 institutional investors signed up to the UN Supported Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI), the bulk of which signed up after 2017. Calculations show that managers of publicly offered funds signed up to the UN PRI account for over half of all China’s publicly offered fund assets. They have committed to taking ESG factors into account when making investment decisions, and to work to improve ESG performance in their investments both by communicating with the firms and using their votes as shareholders.

Zhi Hanzhen said of her time as an ESG manager: “ESG covers a lot of topics. Alongside climate issues such as carbon neutrality we also look at human capital, corporate governance, and other matters investors are concerned about.” She explained that employment in ESG is continuing to increase, and this will be the focus of the next green employment report by CAYA (Climate Action Youth Alliance).

“What I’ve found during my work is that you can’t solve environmental and social issues by relying on people’s goodwill. So I think getting capital involved is a positive trend,” Du Bowen said, referring to investments in green companies as well as investor pressure on all kinds of companies to report and improve upon their ESG performance. “In the past, government oversight was more relaxed, which meant even less motivation. With policy gradually improving and investors providing encouragement, companies are showing more vigour.”

The rise of green finance and the ESG field led to rumours online that an ESG manager could earn 150,000 yuan (US$20,000) a month. Industry insiders told China Dialogue that even if that is achievable, it’s extremely rare. Actual earnings for ESG roles depend on the company. The finance sector, naturally, tends to pay more. But in most sectors, businesses will pay in line with their usual salaries. Once you are out of the finance sector, the CAYA decarbonisation report says, most decarbonisation-related roles pay 10,000-20,000 yuan (US$1,385­–2,770) a month. And those jobs tend to be in first-tier cities, mainly Beijing.

Are women the backbone of green employment?

“I’ve got one observation, though I’m not sure if it’s accurate,” Du Bowen said. “A lot of ESG workers are women. If you go to an ESG conference, you’ll see a lot of companies’ ESG officials are women. I think that’s true for the entire Asia-Pacific region.”

Chinese–English bilingual environmental podcast Environment China has also pointed out that the sustainability field tends to be female-dominated. This prompted it to start a series of episodes focused on young workers in the field. Guests have included many successful young women such as an embassy official working on green finance, a sustainability manager for a consumer products firm, and an environmental NGO founder. Yuan Xiaodan, creator of the podcast and former executive director of the Beijing Energy Network, told China Dialogue: “The green sector is a very broad category. Overall, I think the number of women isn’t small and they are usually very active.”

That perception can be backed up. An RBC Global Assets Management study once found female clients were twice as likely as their male counterparts to promote ESG issues. Du Bowen commented this may be because ESG includes gender equality issues and inclusiveness.

But analysis based on wider datasets is more conservative. LinkedIn’s Green Skills Report found that between 2015 and 2021, for every 100 men considered “green talent”, there were only 62 women. The proportion of green jobs in overall employment is increasing, though men are moving into the sector faster. But the report also pointed out that in half of the surveyed countries, the gender gap had shrunk somewhat, with growth in women as green talent increasing faster than in men. These countries were mostly European.

“Green industry is a very broad field. You may find more women in research industries, such as climate change think-tanks and academic institutions, ESG and decarbonisation reporting. You may also find more of them in lifestyle-related industries, such as sustainable catering, second-hand markets and vegetarian food,” said Yuan Xiaodan. “But from what I’ve seen, there’s no shortage of men in the new departments being set up in traditional firms. For example, where car makers are setting up electric vehicle departments or energy firms are setting up renewable energy operations.”

Emerging industries uneven

The “sustainability fever” triggered by policy and market drivers has made the employment market more complicated.

First, the jobs available are a mixed bag. “Once the 2060 carbon neutrality target was announced there was a rush to cut carbon emissions,” said Yang Yifan, sustainable development manager for the China office of dairy alternatives producer Oatly, speaking on the Environment China podcast. “But a problem I’ve noticed is that, despite that rush, there’s still a lack of accumulated knowledge and talent backing it up. So we see cases of greenwashing, such as the sudden appearance of lots of ‘zero carbon’ products on the market.”

Yang also pointed out that this makes achieving zero carbon seem easier than it is. “Those in the field need to do their work and help consumers realise what impact their choices have on carbon emissions and what that means for the planet.”

The CAYA decarbonisation report found many jobseekers in the field are new arrivals who think the policy changes provide an opportunity for career advancement. These often unsuitable applicants are looking more at the prospects of the employer or the sector, than opportunities for personal growth and learning. Zhi Hanzhen told China Dialogue: “They might not have the necessary resources to understand what the work really involves, leading to a mismatch between their expectations and reality.”

Companies struggle to recruit staff who have the skills and knowledge they need, with mid and high-level talent particularly hard to find. For jobseekers, meanwhile, it can be hard to find and understand information about the jobs, and then they may discover the work is not what they expected. Posts are also concentrated in first-tier cities.

A major reason for this might be problems with the education system. According to CAYA’s report, almost half of jobseekers in the carbon field graduated with a degree related to the environment. But there are few degrees in China specifically covering climate change and decarbonisation, nor is there a system in place for training in these fields. Degrees which might look relevant – environmental engineering or environmental science, for example – still focus on handling air and water pollution, with few, if any, classes on carbon topics.

During the latest Two Sessions – the annual meeting of China’s top legislature – a proposal on training “carbon talent” was submitted by a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. It noted the lack of high-level technical talent in the carbon sector and suggested training should include time spent in the workplace.

It can be anticipated that jobs in green sectors such as environmental protection, energy and even sustainable consumption will further increase in the future. And the lack of green talent serves as an indicator of what the transition requires from the Chinese education and labour markets.

This article was originally published on China Dialogue under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

Call +44 (0)20 7802 2000 or email enquiries@cbbc.org now to find out how CBBC’s market research and analysis services can provide you with the information you need to succeed in China.

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China’s active involvement in climate diplomacy can increase overseas understanding of its climate policies and bring impetus to global climate governance, writes Liu Yuanling from China Dialogue

Tensions arising from globalisation are increasing, leading to a trend towards deglobalisation and making the international action the climate crisis calls for even harder. The Covid-19 pandemic left countries isolated and estranged. The war in Ukraine has led to antagonism and power struggles. China-US relations are at their worst since diplomatic relations were established in 1979. The lack of cooperation between the world’s two biggest carbon emitters makes global climate governance a bigger challenge, as the needed trust and cooperation become harder to achieve.

The last month has seen a flurry of climate diplomacy from China. A joint statement with France contained much content of substance on the climate; another with Brazil was specifically on climate; and more climate dialogue and cooperation were discussed in talks Chinese leaders held with both Dr Sultan Al Jaber, president-designate of this year’s COP28 climate talks, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

This climate diplomacy should help promote a positive understanding of China in Europe and Latin America during these complex geopolitical times. It should also, through multilateral cooperation, inject new energy and impetus into global climate governance.

Since signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, China has attached much importance to bilateral climate cooperation. China and the US, despite tensions, have both treated the climate as a safer space in which to maintain cooperation, and although there have been setbacks, talks have not completely stopped. China has consistently taken climate issues seriously both at home and internationally, using bilateral and multilateral climate diplomacy to seek opportunities for cooperation and to contribute to international climate governance. This author believes China’s active involvement in such diplomacy will increase understanding of its climate policy and action. When the outside world recognises China’s actions and successes on climate change, there will be benefits for climate governance both at home and worldwide.

How China is cooperating with major powers

Climate change is a systemic issue requiring a systemic response. No country can stand alone.

Emissions data show that cooperation between the largest emitters is crucial for achieving the targets of the Paris Agreement. In 2021, the six biggest emitters (China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, India and Japan) together accounted for 68% of global emissions; China, the US and the EU were responsible for over 50%, while the two biggest economies, China and the US, accounted for over 40%. The response to climate change must be a joint undertaking, and cooperation is essential for driving global climate governance forward.

A look back shows that despite difficulties and reversals, when the big emitters set a good example, it can have a real impact. For example, in March 2020, the EU enshrined its carbon neutrality target in law, and many countries followed suit. China–US cooperation once drove global climate policy design and ultimately led to the Paris Agreement.

But climate governance is suffering from a trust deficit. Discussions of issues such as “how to decide who does what?” and “who acts first?” have been had over and over again. The trust deficit – both within and between global north and global south countries – is an obvious constraint on global climate governance.

There is no clearer example of this than finance for the Green Climate Fund. In 2010, the COP16 climate talks decided that, to help developing nations respond to climate change, developed nations should provide US$30 billion in rapid start-up funding by 2012 and a further $100 billion annually from 2013 to 2020. However, the definitions of what counts as climate funding, the associated statistics, and reporting and verification systems remain unclear and often controversial.

According to OECD, in 2020, developed countries provided and leveraged $83.3 billion for climate action in developing countries, while the $100 billion per year goal could be met this year.

A lack of leadership is another major impediment to climate action. The EU often leads by example, both in climate governance and action. But various obstacles – its own growth issues and inadequate internal cohesion and unity – mean it cannot achieve all it would like to. Meanwhile, the polarised politics of the US mean its actions on climate have gone from one extreme to the other, with Democrats forging ahead and Republicans hitting reverse. The Trump administration promoted an America-first unilateralism, with various backward moves on the climate-wrecking the country’s standing and leadership and hindering the sound development of global climate governance. Since he assumed office in 2021, President Joe Biden has brought in ambitious legislation and spending on climate action. However, nobody can guarantee that Trump won’t return.

Against this background of conflict and crisis, global warming is worsening and the window for action continues to shrink. Global climate governance is under unprecedented pressure.

Climate change is a systemic issue requiring a systemic response. No country can stand alone.

A timeline of China-US climate relations

Since formal diplomacy began in 1979, the relationship between China and the US has seen ups and downs, but a crisis was always followed by a quick return to healthy relations. Here is a timeline of the key cooperative moments since 1997.

1997: President Jiang Zemin visits the US and signs a bilateral deal to cooperate on energy and the environment.
1998: Bill Clinton pays a return visit to China and signs a letter of intent to cooperate on monitoring urban air quality.
1999: The two countries sign another letter of intent, this time to cooperate on clean air and clean energy technology.
2003: A China-US Working Group on Climate Change is formed to further technical cooperation.
2006: The China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) framework is created, which would see top leaders from both countries meet twice a year, in what one person on the US side referred to as “sort of like a G2”.
2008: A framework for energy and environment cooperation over the coming decade is signed during the fourth round of the SED.
2014: The two countries sign a Joint Statement on Climate Change.
2015: Xi Jinping and Barack Obama announce a Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change, to work together to make a success of the upcoming Paris climate conference, which will lead to the Paris Agreement.
2021: At COP26, the two countries announce a Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s.

The years 2014 and 2015 were particularly crucial, as they underpinned the Paris Agreement, which has guided global climate governance ever since. And since the Biden administration came to power, there have been frequent climate interactions between the countries.

In 2021, there was a phone call between the two leaders at Chinese New Year; strategic talks in Alaska that March; spring and autumn talks between the two nations’ climate envoys in Shanghai and Tianjin; a further presidential phone call in September; and in November, the Glasgow joint declaration on climate action. In good times and bad, climate has always been on the agenda, and progress has been made, if bumpily.

However, overall relations have gone into freefall since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. Wang Jisi, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies and head of the university’s Institute of International and Strategic Studies, has said:

“China-US relations have been worsening since the latter part of the Trump administration, with disagreements intensifying on trade, technology, military affairs and ideology. Biden retained the bulk of Trump-era policies on China, but has focused more on the use of guardrails to manage the relationship. Currently, we are more than halfway through Biden’s first term and relations continue to worsen thanks to the war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan and the US’s technological decoupling.”

Talks on methane emissions, clean power, the circular economy and urban climate action were planned for September 2022, but the visit by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan in August, despite strong objections from the Chinese government, put an end to the work. There is one ray of hope: there have been reports that US climate envoy John Kerry is to visit China, which may restart climate diplomacy between the two countries.

Accurately evaluating China’s climate diplomacy and its future direction is not just important to China – it is also important for the process of global climate governance.

Promoting multilateral climate diplomacy

Despite the pauses with the US, China has been making steady progress in other bilateral and multilateral climate efforts since signing the Paris Agreement.

According to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment’s records on international cooperation, China has been expanding the scope of its interactions, maintaining cooperation and exchanges with the EU, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), African nations and the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It has also participated in multilateral climate diplomacy with its neighbours, by attending meetings such as the Second Forum on Carbon Neutrality Goals of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Interactions on climate have been seen frequently and with a number of countries in recent months. April’s China–France Joint Statement had 51 articles, eight of which were on climate issues. The statement made climate change part of the two countries’ joint response to the challenges of globalisation. This lays a good foundation for their future climate diplomacy and hopefully more concrete measures. For example, Article 36 reads:

“France and China intend to cooperate to resolve the difficulties in accessing financing in developing and emerging economies, and to encourage them to speed up their energy and climate transition while supporting sustainable development. China will take part in the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris in June 2023. France will attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.”

April also saw the release of the Brazil–China Joint Statement on Combating Climate Change. Some of the articles are of particular interest. Article 5, for example, states:

“We are determined to further strengthen multilateralism, including with all our partners within the Group of 77 and China (G77+China), with a view to a model of climate solidarity that is collective, that rejects unilateralism and green trade barriers, and that is firmly grounded on values of solidarity and cooperation in our international community”.

Meanwhile, Article 7 reads: “We urge developed countries to honour their unfulfilled climate finance obligations, and to commit to their new collective quantified goal that goes well beyond the floor of $100 billion per year and provide a clear roadmap of doubling adaptation finance.”

China’s climate measures, at home and abroad

Accurately evaluating China’s climate diplomacy and its future direction is not just important to China – it is also important for the process of global climate governance.

China is still a developing nation, with uneven levels of socioeconomic development, a coal-heavy energy mix, and a comparatively weak foundation in science and technology. But between 2012 and 2021, it saw economic growth average 6.5%, while energy consumption increased by an average of only 3%. The enormous efforts China has made towards its low-carbon transition deserve to be seen and valued.

A review of its domestic action on climate change and its climate diplomacy overseas finds there has been criticism and questioning, particularly of institutional arrangements, allocation of staff and funding, and policy focus. But China has continued to take active, responsible and sustainable measures, both at home and abroad.

In 2022, its newly installed wind, solar and hydropower capacity far exceeded that of newly installed coal. Meanwhile, wind and solar power generation reached 1.19 trillion kilowatt hours – a year-on-year increase of 21% – supplying 13.8% of total electricity consumption. China’s power generation mix has been undergoing tremendous changes: also in 2022, the proportion of coal power in total power generation dropped from 65–70% to 58.4%, and the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation rose to 36.2%.

The joint statements with France and Brazil have set the tone for future cooperation. Can the outside world take a fair and objective view of China’s efforts on climate change? Can it recognise China’s efforts and successes and seek opportunities for cooperation and complementarity? Can it make cooperation the theme of its relationships with China and continually deepen and expand that cooperation? The answers to these questions will be of profound importance. Only when each side sees and accepts the other will there be more space for cooperation in climate diplomacy with China, and a brighter and more hopeful future for global climate governance.

This article was originally published on China Dialogue under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

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