China is in the "driving seat" when it comes to "international co-operation" on climate, said President Xi Jinping at a major political meeting in Beijing ahead of the UN-led climate talks in Bonn last week, the first annual meeting of the negotiations since President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement.
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| Shifting the Chinese economy away from fossil fuels puts jobs in carbon-intensive sectors at risk. |
Mr Trump's decision had left a power vacuum: the historic accord reached in 2014 between then president Barack Obama and Mr Xi, leading the world's two largest economies, which together account for about 40 per cent of global emissions, had underpinned the consensus reached by the international community in late 2015 in Paris. Could China alone fill that vacuum?
China certainly made its presence felt at the talks, but often in its traditional stance as defender of the developing countries, arguing that rich countries must shoulder the greater burden of decarbonisation, a position reportedly described by Greenpeace East Asia campaigner Li Shuo as "an inevitable result of international climate diplomacy in the post-US era”.
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