Tue September, 2020, Age: 3 years
China’s pledge at the UN last week to become carbon neutral by 2060 has been met with cautious applause in the climate change community, but comes at a time when the state has turned back to coal amid geopolitical uncertainty in OPEC and economic contractions due to COVID-19. Amid a variety of other infrastructure investments, government leaders this year have issued plans to build new coal plants to revive flatlining provincial economies. China now accounts for nearly a third of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, and its coal consumption in June this year climbed to peak levels not seen since 2013. According to one analyst, the UN pledge “pits Beijing’s strategic interests against the immediate goals of cash-strapped provincial governments.”
