Yellen Calls on China to Increase Investments in Climate Finance
Yellen Calls on China to Increase Investments in Climate Finance
On Saturday, the administration of Vice President Joe Biden issued a call to action to China, pushing the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases to support international climate financing funds, which China has rejected to support up to this point. China is now the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases.
The message was delivered by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen during her second day of talks in Beijing, where she is attempting to nurture areas of collaboration between the United States of America and China. Despite the fact that China has stated its support for initiatives that aim to assist less developed nations in adapting to the consequences of climate change, the country has been picky about which funds it has contributed to, saying that it, too, is a developing nation.
Ms. Yellen stated that the United States and China had a shared interest on the topic of climate change and that the two countries might make a more substantial influence on the issue if they collaborated.
Ms. Yellen said this during a meeting on Saturday morning with a group of Chinese and international sustainable finance experts. “I believe that if China were to support existing multilateral climate institutions like the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds alongside us and other donor governments, we could have a greater impact than we do today,” she said.
During a meeting on Saturday afternoon with Vice Premier He Lifeng, her counterpart in China who is in charge of the country’s economy, Ms. Yellen brought up climate funding as well as the issues that poor countries are having with their debt.
Ms. Yellen mentioned in her opening remarks that the United States and China “face important global challenges, such as debt distress in emerging markets and developing countries and climate change, where we have a duty to both our own countries and to other countries to cooperate.” These challenges include debt distress in emerging markets and developing countries as well as the changing climate.
Ms. Yellen and Mr. After over seven hours of combined discussion, which began in a conference room and continued over dinner, he agreed to part ways. In an effort to forge a deeper level of communication with the Chinese government, the Biden administration held a marathon session that came close to rivalling the seven and a half hours that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Qin Gang of China spent in a meeting followed by dinner three weeks ago in Beijing. It was a marathon session that lasted for nearly the same amount of time.
Mr. He has seldom met with international officials or business executives in recent years, and many of his personal opinions on policy are a mystery. This has prompted a significant desire among American officials to create greater communication with him. Mr. He has rarely met with foreign officials or business executives in recent years.
In a statement released after the meeting, the Treasury Department referred to the discussion as “candid, constructive, and comprehensive.” While discussing “issues of concern,” Ms. Yellen also “discussed the administration’s approach to seeking a healthy economic competition with China, with a level playing field for American workers and businesses.” While Ms. Yellen did highlight “issues of concern,” she did so while simultaneously discussing “the administration’s approach to seeking a healthy economic competition with China.”
“Secretary Yellen also conveyed that even when the United States and China have disagreements, it is vital that the two countries find ways to work together on issues of shared — and global — concern,” the statement said. Some of these issues include debt distress in low-income and emerging economies as well as climate finance.
Both the United States and China are coming under increasing amounts of pressure from nations that are still in the process of developing to increase the amount of money that is made available to help nations that are still in the process of developing renewable energy sources, shutting down coal plants, or dealing with the effects of climate change by constructing sea walls, improving drainage, or developing early warning systems for floods and cyclones.
The United States government, when Barack Obama was in office, made a commitment to contribute $3 billion over the course of four years to the Green Climate Fund, which is a programme managed by the United Nations and designed to assist less developed nations. To this point, it has fulfilled its obligation to deliver $2 billion. There have been many attempts made by Republicans to prevent taxpayer money from going into the fund and other climate financing, but President Biden has used discretionary expenditure within the State Department to complete a portion of the United States’ obligation.
According to the research, China has only contributed around 10 percent of the $3.1 billion that it committed to donate. In addition to this, it provides financial assistance to countries who are still in the process of growing through a kind of collaboration that its leaders refer to as “South-South” cooperation. The reason for this is because according to the climate body of the United Nations, China is still considered a developing country and not an industrialised nation, despite the fact that China today has a manufacturing sector that is far greater than that of any other country.
It has for a very long time resisted demand to contribute to the same climate funds as wealthier nations despite mounting international pressure.
The head of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing, Ma Jun, stated that China was eager to assist underdeveloped nations in coping with climate change and managing the transition to a warmer world. This research organisation is located in Beijing. However, damage is already being done to poor nations as a result of cumulative emissions that have been emitted mostly by industrialised countries. He believes that such countries should be the ones to shoulder the majority of the responsibility for this issue.
Mr. Ma was quoted as saying, “The industrialised countries need to fulfil their obligations, which have been neglected for a very long time.”
Mr. Ma was only reiterating the viewpoint taken by the Chinese government. Xie Zhenhua, China’s climate envoy, stated in an interview the previous year, after the establishment of a new international fund to assist developing nations in recovering economically from the effects of natural catastrophes, that “it is not the obligation of China to provide financial support” under the U.N. climate regulations. This was in response to a question about whether or not China was required to provide financial assistance.The Department of State during the administration of Joe Biden stated that any significant contribution made by China might assist the United States in pleading its case to members of Congress and other stakeholders in order to obtain approval for climate funding. He also stated that there may be other methods in which the two superpowers might work together to assist developing nations in reducing their usage of coal or methane, which is a harmful greenhouse gas that seeps from oil and gas wells. He said this may help the nations cut down on their carbon emissions.
