China's
Xi Jinping says Paris climate deal must not be allowed to fail
President
says ‘we only have one homeland’ in a coded warning to Donald
Trump not to dismantle the agreement
Tom Phillips in
Beijing
Thursday 19 January
2017 03.11 GMT
The world must not
allow the Paris climate deal to be “derailed” or continue to
inflict irreparable damage on the environment, Chinese president Xi
Jinping has said, amid fears the rise of Donald Trump could strike a
body blow to the fight against global warming.
Trump, who will be
sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday, has
threatened to pull out of the historic Paris agreement and dismissed
climate change as a Chinese “hoax” and “expensive… bullshit”.
But in an address to
the United Nations in Geneva on Wednesday, which observers saw as a
high-profile bid to bolster China’s image as a reliable and
dedicated climate leader, Xi issued a direct challenge to those
views, warning “there is only one Earth in the universe and we
mankind have only one homeland”.
“The Paris
agreement is a milestone in the history of climate governance. We
must ensure this endeavor is not derailed,” the Communist party
leader said.
“All parties
should work together to implement the Paris agreement. China will
continue to take steps to tackle climate change and fully honor its
obligations,” Xi added, according to a transcript published by
Xinhua, China’s official news agency.
Just a few months
ago, climate campaigners hailed a major breakthrough in efforts to
tackle global warming when Barack Obama and Xi jointly announced that
their countries, the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases,
would ratify the Paris accord.
“We have a saying
in America that you need to put your money where your mouth is,”
Obama said at the time. “And when it comes to combating climate
change that is what we are doing … we are leading by example.”
Signatories of the
deal, which came into force in November last year, agreed to keep
global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.
However, Trump’s
shock election – and the presence of so many climate sceptics in
his administration – has thrown the US’ commitment to such goals
into doubt.
In his Geneva speech
Xi reaffirmed Beijing’s pledges to slash its emissions and sought
to position China, which remains the world’s top polluter, as a
global pacesetter on climate change and sustainable development.
“We should make
our world clean and beautiful by pursuing green and low-carbon
development,” he told his audience.
“Man coexists with
nature, which means that any harm to nature will eventually come back
to haunt man. We hardly notice natural resources such as air, water,
soil and blue sky when we have them. But we won’t be able to
survive without them.”
“Industrialisation
has created material wealth never seen before, but it has also
inflicted irreparable damage to the environment,” Xi went on. “We
must not exhaust all the resources passed on to us by previous
generations and leave nothing to our children or pursue development
in a destructive way. Clear waters and green mountains are as good as
mountains of gold and silver. We must maintain harmony between man
and nature and pursue sustainable development.”
Li Shuo,
Greenpeace’s China climate policy adviser, described Xi’s speech
as “a very important political signal … especially in the context
of the incoming US administration”.
The activist said he
believed Xi’s call to arms on the climate was designed to pressure
Trump’s White House into sticking to his predecessor’s
commitments while simultaneously highlighting China’s role as a
responsible climate leader.
“It is a
calculated move… it is their first move on the chess board and I
expect further moves if they are needed at a later stage,” said Li.
“China has a very
important and a very special role in keeping the US on course and we
would very much like to see them use their leverage on that,” he
added.
Zhang Haibin, an
expert in environmental diplomacy from Peking University’s school
of international studies, said Xi’s speech was a response to the
global “uncertainties and concerns” that Trump’s election had
thrown up, including over climate change.
The president’s
words “sent a strong signal to the world” about China’s
determination to tackle global warming.
Zhang said Beijing
would stick to its climate commitments since it understood the
importance of cutting deadly air pollution but argued China would not
want to serve as the world’s “sole leader” on climate change.
“We regard
ourselves as a developing country and, in addition to that, we’ve
got pollution issues and are facing an economic slowdown at home,”
he said.
Additional reporting
by Wang Zhen
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