China and India, two of the world’s largest emitters, have key roles to play in tackling climate change, said COP30 United Nations president-designate André Aranha Corrêa do Lago.
This is especially as the United States, led by President Donald Trump, retreats from global climate leadership, and with the European Union facing growing industry pushback against policies to protect the environment, he said.
China’s large-scale development of solar power has sent the prices of solar modules plummeting, Corrêa do Lago said in an online press briefing held by the Oxford Climate Journalism Network last Thursday. This has allowed other developing countries to adopt solar at a lower cost and rapidly expand renewable energy, he added, lauding China for its ability to “give some fantastic answers to climate change”.
“People will look at China for additional leadership taking into consideration that the United States is getting out [of the Paris Agreement]… We have to work with China.”
The veteran climate diplomat who has served as Brazil’s chief negotiator in global climate talks was answering a question on the role of the Asian super power after the US pulled out from the Paris Agreement, a climate accord to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Though it remains reliant on coal and imported oil, China delivers nearly 85 per cent of global demand for solar photovoltaic modules, and about 60 per cent of global installations for offshore wind. Both technologies from the mainland come at costs unlikely to be matched for at least the rest of this decade, according to scientific reports.
Corrêa do Lago also said India is “extremely important”, as its leadership “continues to have the mandate” of the people to work on improving their quality of living.
The career diplomat was former ambassador to India and likened the nation to Brazil. “Parts of its population are in poverty, but it is also home to extraordinary companies, amazing cities, universities and scientists,” he said. It “represents the world as it is”, and hence, as a developing country, “understands the real world” much better than developed countries, he added.
India is South Asia’s largest economy, although over one quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.
Brazil appointed Corrêa do Lago to lead this year’s climate summit in November in the Amazonian city of Belém. This comes after two consecutive COPs – in Dubai, followed by Baku – were led by executives linked to state-owned oil companies.
Considered one of Brazil’s most experienced diplomats, Corrêa do Lago’s presidency has been highly praised locally and internationally by climate and environment organisations. He is known to have a good rapport across the political spectrum, along with a deep understanding of multilateral climate negotiations.
His comments at the press briefing come as other global leaders also called for India and China to step up. For example, Mafalda Duarte, head of the UN-backed Green Climate Fund, told American media group Bloomberg in an interview last Friday that Trump’s pulling of at least US$4 billion that US had previously pledged has left its agenda “in a very difficult situation”. “It leaves us with the need for others to take leadership positions,” she said.
She added that China and India, alongside other countries, should form a “coalition of the ambitious”.
Both China and India, however, have not submitted their “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, to the Paris Agreement, which should outline their climate action plan by 2035. Experts that Eco-Business previously spoke to said the two countries are holding back in light of uncertainties in a post-Trump world, though they are expected to submit their NDCs before the COP30 summit.
At last year’s COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, developed countries agreed to mobilise US$300 billion per year for developing countries by 2035, with efforts to reach US$1.3 trillion a year. The COP30 presidency has a mandate to present a report to detail how to hit the larger climate finance goal, said Corrêa do Lago.
The US retreat from climate finance efforts will have a negative effect on other donor countries such as Europe and Japan, observed Corrêa do Lago. “They are very afraid they have to fill a gap…when all these donations and transfers are already not popular in elections.”
It is also challenging to get to US$1.3 trillion in funding for developing countries with just donations, he said. There needs to be a “big change in perception”, particularly in the way financiers perceive climate risks, and the COP30 presidency will work on stressing the “moral obligation” of the world to support countries that are most vulnerable to climate change, yet least responsible for contributing to it, he added.
