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John Kerry makes his CO26 appearance

China backs off from its CO26 carbon reduction pledge (which was nothing but lip service to begin with).

Targets come with no guarantees and should not affect development, former officials say. Awareness has grown of just how difficult it will be for the country to make the shift away from the fossil fuel, analysts say

Echo Xie
Published: 9:15am, 13 Dec, 2021

Serving and former Chinese senior officials have urged caution on the path towards carbon neutrality, echoing the leadership’s assessment that climate targets “can’t be achieved in just one battle”.

Addressing a forum in Beijing on Saturday, former finance minister Lou Jiwei said that while China had said it would “strive to” reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, there was a difference between this and “ensuring [those targets would be achieved]”.

“We are a developing country. We should bear common but differentiated responsibilities that are different from developed countries,” Lou told the gathering organised by the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges.

Han Wenxiu, from the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, was similarly cautious, saying the two targets were complex and long-term tasks that required full consideration of the country’s energy and industrial structure.

According to the statement, fossil fuels should be phased out “based on” safe and reliable alternative sources of energy. China should also make clean and efficient use of coal, given the fuel’s dominant role in the country’s power generation and consumption, it said.

A month ago John Kerry announced a US to China technology transfer agreement, in which Kerry agreed to gift US technology and access to US academia to China for free, to help China reduce CO2 emissions.