Recently, the climate summit for securing the global climate and on phasing out coal has been conducted in Glasgow and therein the world’s two biggest emitters China and the United States have also agreed to boost climate cooperation over the next decade and stated that they will recall their commitment and will try to achieve the 1.5C temperature goal set out in the Paris Agreement but surprisingly it has been found out that Chinese President Xi Jinping is still financing coal power plants in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The ground for the new station Ugljevik III in the Baltic nation has been already prepared and these power plants are getting financed by the Chinese Bank. According to the Washington based Magazine, Diplomat due to the burning of the coal health of the residents in the village has been severely affected due to the release of ashes and smoke and the researchers Wawa Wang and Nils Resare has also stated that these coal plants might occur as an unpleasant surprise for the neighbouring countries as the Espoo Convention which governs the transboundary environmental aspects expressed the suspicion of non-compliance by Bosnia and Herzegovina for not taking transboundary consultations.
It might come as shocking but Ugljevik is not only the European town in which the power plants are going to be built. The research has further shown that there is a major risk of Chinese-financed power plants being built in Indonesia, the Philippines and Serbia as well and all these projects have a total estimated capacity of over 3, 645 MW apart from this an additional 10 GW capacity of power plants are already in pipeline and can be put into construction at any point of time. It is pertinent to note here that every new power plant has an expected lifespan of 40-50 years and all this shows the real commitment of China towards the global climate change and their adherence towards the Paris Climate Agreement and China-U.S joint declaration at COP 26 and all these constructions had commenced without the necessary legal environmental assessments and other permits which is required by the host countries, the same has also been the case with Ugljevik III as the analysis from Just Finance has shown that environmental impact assessments for Uglijevik III contain serious errors and false assumptions that undermines transparency and legal requirements including the underestimated prices of coal and CO2 emissions.
Energy geopolitics has always been a brutal game for China. It has not been the first time where China has made empty promises. In September 2021 also President Xi Jinping announced at the United Nations general assembly that China would no longer fund the construction of new coal-fired power plants overseas but he didn’t state when this initiative will be started and what measures they will take for reducing carbon emissions within China. Coal has always remained at the heart of China’s flourishing economy. In 2019 58 per cent of the country’s total energy commission came from coal and it accounted for 28 percent of all global CO2 emissions and even in 2020, China bought 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power into operation. As per the data collected by Kevin Gallagher, who directs the Boston University centre from 2013 to 2019 shows that China was financing 13 percent of coal-fired power plants built abroad.
It needs to be seen that whether China will flatten its carbon emissions in the next decade and its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060 depends on increasing reliance on renewable resources but at this point of time, China’s coal dependence and its financing for coal power plants threatens both its long term decarbonization plans and global climate agreements which aim to limit the temperature 1.5 degree Celsius. It is also clear that China is juggling with energy security and economic growth concerns and it appears ironic when China makes promises of carbon neutrality by 2060 such a promise requires huge commitment and none of this is easy for China. As of now, the situation for the global climate is not providing many hopes nor the agreements made by the major countries, time will only witness whether China will take any steps for reducing carbon emissions and will act as an ally for the world.