If there is any chance of slowing global warming any time soon, the world desperately needs a green alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s trillion-dollar infrastructure project that boosts digital connectivity and Blockchain ledgers are dropping coal-fired power plants in poor countries.
In one case, Chinese engineers dismantled an old coal-fired power plant in Hunan province as part of the country’s local cleanup, and then rebuilt it near Cambodia. The people of Hunan could breathe a sigh of relief as the smog hit the Cambodians. global emissions were without change.
The G7 must have a plan to counter Chinese investments that claim to boost underdeveloped economies while harming the environment. But only G7 chase it down. Instead, the world’s richest countries now have a plan to make a plan.
Extinction Rebellion protesters demonstrate on the last day of the G7 summit in the United Kingdom on June 13. The world’s richest governments are under increasing pressure to help poor countries combat climate change.
Photographs: Holly Adams/Bloomberg
This week in the new economy
This is the essence”Rebuilding a better worldThe (B3W) initiative was announced with great fanfare at the G7 meeting last weekend. The group presented a slogan with little substance beyond the theoretical ambition to focus on climate change as well as health, digital technologies and gender equality.
The G7 has (so far) not put any money on the table for this ambitious exercise. The most realistic promise of the group? Form a working group to present its report in the fall.
It would be possible to take the lead Even more dangerous if its members fully implement the pledges already made to help developing countries on the front lines of the climate crisis.
Back in 2009, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, rich nations pledged to mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020. Mitigating the effects of climate change in developing countries. but they failed (Bloomberg New Energy Finance The actual figure collected is estimated at $71 billion last year, accounting for public funds only). Last week, these countries moved the target to 2025 while making vague promises to “surge and improve” their contributions.
From left: Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, President of the European Council, US President Joe Biden, Yoshihide Suga, Japanese Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, Italian Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron, French President, Ursula Von der Leyen, European Union Commission President, and Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor, on the first day of the G7 summit on June 11.
Photographs: Holly Adams/Bloomberg
Not only has the G7 failed to respond reliably to China’s export of its most polluting coal-fired power plants, it may have spoiled the entire global climate agenda. Disillusionment among developing countries, whose need for climate assistance is growing as their economies drift away from the pandemic, Threatens the success of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
This may, or in fact, weaken the willingness of developing countries to increase their ambitions Active participation in the Glasgow talks,” wrote Victoria Cumming, head of global policy at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
No wonder China thinks the United States ““It’s a shame,” said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, summarizing President Joe Biden’s efforts in Europe to build an anti-China coalition. “It’s best if the G7 takes your heart rate and gives you a prescription,” the spokesperson said.
In fact, B3W shows that China There is no need to worry about Western competition for the Belt and Road, President Xi Jinping’s formative foreign policy initiative. B3W was not even included in the final declaration of the G7, while Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized that the group’s plan (plan) “is not about standing against something, but for something”. “The G7 is not an anti-China group,” French President Emmanuel Macron added.
But anti-China does not mean reversing its environmental practices in the Belt and Road Initiative. a Message From the American Council on Foreign Relations notes that developing countries that have signed up to the Beijing Expanded Global Project “know that China is the single and increasingly important source of financing for coal-fired power plants”. About 40% of Belt and Road loans to the energy sector in 2018 went to coal projects.
US President Joe Biden
Photographer: Thassos Katopodes / UPI
Meanwhile, the United States It targets Chinese tech giants and military-affiliated companies under a comprehensive sanctions regime related to human rights and predation Chinese industrial practices. If China leaves developing markets, “it will proliferate on the Belt and Road,” said Jonathan Hellman, a Belt and Road expert at the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies.
This will likely produce an outcome as China continues to do so It’s getting greener domestically (it’s the global leader in renewable energy) as customer nations go in the opposite direction.
Given the results of the recent G7 meeting, an effective response from the White House is unlikely. Biden’s domestic version of “Building Back Better” has been attacked by Republicans in Congress. His world form would likely have died by the time he arrived.
Watch the future unfold on June 30. Register here For Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst, a 6-hour global virtual event that celebrates innovators, scientists, policy makers, and entrepreneurs who are quick to find solutions to today’s biggest problems. We’ll explore what’s important, what’s next, and what if climate change, agriculture, biotechnology, digital money, e-commerce, and space through the imaginations and stories of these emerging leaders.
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