Limited promises made at U.N. climate summit
UNITED NATIONS — China on Monday made no new promises to take stronger climate action. The U.S., having vowed to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, said nothing at all, demonstrating a lack of leadership from the biggest polluter in history. A host of presidents and prime ministers used the occasion to boast about what they were doing to reduce emissions but made only incremental promises.
That was the scene at the U.N. Climate Action Summit, which Secretary-General António Guterres had organized to highlight what he called “concrete” commitments to wean the global economy away from planet warming fossil fuels and to do more to help the most vulnerable cope with the effects of global warming.
There were some concrete commitments. Some 60 countries promised to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and several asset fund managers said they would aim to get to a net-zero portfolio of investments by the same year.
President Donald Trump unexpectedly dropped into the General Assembly hall with Vice President Mike Pence in the late morning. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed Trump’s presence and addressed
the president directly by saying, “Hopefully our discussions here will be useful for you when you formulate climate policy.”
That was followed by laughter and applause. It signaled a contrast from just a few years ago, when the U.S. had been credited with pushing other countries, including China, to take climate change seriously. The U.S. is not on track to meet its pledges under the Paris agreement, and the Trump administration has rolled back a host of environmental regulations, from automobile tailpipes to coal plants to oil and gas wells.
The administration did not request a speaking slot at the summit.
What really got the attention of delegates in the hall was Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg early in the day lighting into world leaders for their “business as usual” approach to a problem so grave. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you,” she said, her voice quavering with rage. “If you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.”
Rarely does anyone speak in this way at the world body. Later in the day, Thunberg watched with a look of fury in her eyes as Trump passed through a hall, a video clip posted on Twitter showed.
China did not signal its readiness to issue stronger, swifter targets to transition away from fossil fuels, as many had hoped. Wang Yi, a special representative for President Xi Jinping, noted that his country was keeping the promises it made under the 2015 Paris agreement and that “certain countries” — a reference to the U.S., which has said it intends to withdraw — were not.
“China will faithfully fulfill its obligations,” Wang said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also had a message for the U.S., telling the assembly that “I don’t want to see new trade negotiations with countries who are running counter to the Paris agreement.”
The statement could create a new stumbling block to trade agreements between the U.S. and Europe, which are already plagued by differences over agriculture, the rules of the global trading system and Trump’s potential tariffs on cars.
China’s decision to not signal higher ambition reflects, in part, concerns about its own slowing economy against the backdrop of conflicts with the U.S. on trade. It also reflected Beijing’s reluctance to take stronger climate action in the absence of similar moves from richer countries. The European Union has not signaled its intention to cut emissions faster either, and the U.S. is nowhere on track to meet its original commitments under the Paris accord.
“There’s no particular reason why China should do anything new now because they’re not getting any pressure from the United States and they’re on track to achieve their commitments,” said Kelly Sims Gallagher, professor of energy and environmental policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
“This extends the limbo while the rest of the world waits to see what the United States is going to be doing in 2020,” she said.
The summit unfolded against the backdrop of new data that showed the quickening pace of warming.
The world is getting hotter at a faster pace, the World Meteorological Organization concluded in its latest report Sunday, with the five-year period between 2014 and 2019 the warmest on record.