Xi not there? COP26 hopes dim upon Chinese leader’s likely non-attendance

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The leaders of most of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters collect in Glasgow from Sunday, aiming to defeat out plans and funds to outlook the planet towards tidy animatronics. But the man dealing out the biggest of them all likely won’t be there.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s usual absence from the talks could indicate that the world’s biggest CO2 producer has already agreed that it has no more concessions to tolerate at the U.N. COP26 climate peak in Scotland after three major pledges by now last year, climate watchers said.

Instead, China will likely be represented by vice-setting minister Zhao Yongming along taking into account the veteran Xin Zhen Hua, who was reappointed as the country’s depth climate envoy earlier this year then than a three-year hiatus.

“One matter is utter,” said Li Shoo, senior climate adviser as soon as Greenpeace in Beijing. “COP26 needs high-level decline to vote from China as dexterously as new emitters.”

The head of the world’s third-biggest source of climate-warming emissions, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has effective to attending the COP26 zenith, which runs from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12. Like secondary leaders, he will arrive out cold pressure from zenith organizers to commit to quicker emissions cuts and set a twist date to believe carbon neutrality – a set sights on set by Xi for 2060 in a wonder shape last year.

But China will be unwilling to be seen acquiescent to international pressure for more ambitious goals, according to one environmental consultant, especially as it grapples taking into account a crippling energy supply crunch at habitat. Beijing is “already maxed out”, said the consultant, speaking a propose condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Though there has been no credited advertisement, analysts and political sources said few had been expecting Xi to attend COP26 in person. He has already missed several high-profile global summits back the COVID-19 outbreak began in late 2019, and didn’t physically attend the Global Biodiversity Conference in China’s Kunming earlier this month.

They plus said Xi was unlikely to lend his creature presence – a virtual video environment remains a possibility – to a meeting that had tiny prospect of any significant breakthrough, especially after China brushed off U.S. attempts to treat climate as a ‘standalone’ matter that could be estranged from the broader political disputes together amid the two sides.

Rather than making more concessions, China and India’s intensity priority is to fix a sound financing unity allowing richer countries to meet their Paris Agreement loyalty to pay for $100 billion per year to put taking place to pay for climate getting used to and transfer tidy technology in the developing world. Xi did attend the Paris intensity in person in 2015.

DOMESTIC CONCERNS

Although Xi has not travelled uncovered China since at the forefront the pandemic, he has made three major climate announcements as regards the international stage.

His quick net zero loyalty came in a video domicile to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2020. That personal ad encouraged enterprises, industry sectors and even late buildup countries to recognition behind their own net-zero accomplish plans.

Xi with said in a pronouncement to the U.S.-led Leaders Summit in report to Climate in April that China would begin bitter coal consumption by 2026. And he used this year’s UNGA to deem an sudden halt to overseas coal financing, a major bone of contention.

Like India, China has been below pressure to p.s. more intend to its updated “nationally complimentary contributions” (NDCs) roughly climate shape, which are due to be announced at the forefront the Glasgow talks begin.

However, the revisions are confirmed to focus upon implementing the targets that have already been announced, rather than making them more ambitious.

China has repeatedly tense that its climate policies are intended to minister to its own domestic priorities, and will not be pursued at the expense of national security and public welfare.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based non-running group that monitors corporate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, said China already had passable climate challenges to incorporation subsequent to and has little leeway to go added in Glasgow.

“With all the headwinds and every the pledges that have been made, it is important to execution include and consolidate,” he said.

“It’s not permitted to put these (commitments) upon paper,” he added. “We have to translate them into sound activities.”