What China can do to limit climate change
For more than a week, a blanket of thick, choking smog has hung Beijing the city. On Tuesday, the city issued its first-ever "red alert" for pollution. That meant closing schools, suspending factories and ordering half of all cars and trucks off the streets.
An air pollution emergency in China's capital happening just as the Paris climate talks heat up may seem ironic, but that ongoing smog problem is just one factor behind what many see as China's new approach to the environment. At the Copenhagen meetings six years ago, China was widely seen as a spoiler, a climate change laggard intent on preventing a deal. But this year, Chinese leaders arrived in Paris having already signed a bilateral deal with the U.S. and are promising to stop increasing carbon emissions by 2030.
As it is, China produces more carbon emissions than any other country on earth, but it also invests more in renewable energy than any other country, and the fate of the Paris talks could come down to what China commits to now.
- Sophie Lu is the China Carbon and Power Markets Analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. She was in Beijing.
- Tao Wang is a Resident Scholar of Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. He was in Beijing.
This segment was produced by The Current's Gord Westmacott.