Once is not custom, it is one of the guests – in this case China – who announced, Thursday, April 15, that President Xi Jinping would participate, the next day, by video link, in “A summit of China-France-Germany leaders on the climate, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron”.
Announced at the same time that John Kerry, Joe Biden’s climate representative, was in Shanghai to prepare, with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, the climate summit that the White House is organizing on April 22 and 23, this ” “tripartite summit” could be interpreted as a bad way done to Joe Biden.
But, from a European source, it is affirmed that this is not the case and that this meeting, simply qualified as “videoconference” by the Elysee and which is part of the “Climatic sequence” diplomatic between major players in the subject, had been planned for several weeks. However, it had not yet been announced before Beijing took charge of it.
A dynamic of competition
“For China, make this interview with Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel public [la chancelière allemande], one week before the climate summit convened by Joe Biden, allows the establishment of a dynamic of competition between the United States and the European Union on climate leadership, says Jennifer Tollmann, expert at the European think tank E3G, specializing in climate diplomacy. And this allows Beijing, internally, to show that it is not subject to American pressure. “ For Dimitri de Boer, head of the China office of the environmental NGO ClientEarth, “Xi Jinping wants to reaffirm that China sees its relationship with the European Union, in terms of climate and environment, as stronger and more important than that with the United States”.
“It is not because the United States has returned to the race that France and the European Union are erased. The idea is to show that we are present and driving forces in the climate ambition, as we have always been ”, we say to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we are assured that there is a “Very good cooperation with the Americans” and “No competition”. A European source argues, moreover, that John Kerry went to Brussels – where he met all the European Commissioners – before going to Shanghai. Europeans and Americans have therefore stalled their positions ahead of the Shanghai meeting and the Franco-German-Chinese meeting on Friday.
Take stock of everyone’s commitments before COP26
While some European countries may feel that they are being sidelined, one diplomat points out that neither France nor Germany have their own position on the climate. Their position is that of the European Union. In addition, since Xi Jinping’s state visit to Paris in March 2019, Emmanuel Macron has been implementing a Franco-German policy towards China. He had invited Angela Merkel – but also Jean-Claude Juncker, at the time president of the European Commission – to the Elysee Palace. The German Chancellor would like to visit China one last time before her term ends in September, and Mr. Macron could be by her side. A first that would constitute a kind of “Symbolic handover”, according to a European observer.
Friday’s meeting, like the upcoming summit, should serve to take stock of the situation and everyone’s commitments before COP26, the United Nations conference on climate change, scheduled for Glasgow (Scotland) in November. In September 2020, Xi Jinping created a surprise by pledging that China will achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. But China seems to be behind on its commitments. According to a study, published Thursday by the London-based organization TransitionZero, China is expected to halve carbon dioxide emissions from its coal-fired power plants by the end of the decade if it is to achieve this goal. . However, because of the strong growth of its economy, coal remains in great demand.
China is developing other sources of energy, however. According to Reuters, the Chinese government on Wednesday approved the construction of five nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 4.9 gigawatts (GW), or about 10% of the country’s total nuclear capacity. nuclear power, an expert commission, predicts that China will have a total nuclear capacity of 200 GW by 2035.