The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China's top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.
China is the world’s biggest consumer of fossil fuels including coal and oil, and its special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua was responding to comments by ambassadors at a forum in Beijing on Thursday ahead of the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai in November.
The stocktake will be at the centre of discussions at the COP28 climate meeting, with campaigners hoping it will create the political will to set clear targets to end coal and oil use.
“It is unrealistic to completely phase out fossil fuel energy,” said Xie, who will represent China at COP28 this year.
While ending fossil fuel use would not be on the table at COP28, Xie said China was open to setting a global renewable energy target as long as it took the divergent economic conditions of different countries into account.
China and the United States, the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, resumed top-level climate talks in July after a hiatus brought about by U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China claims.
China has rejected U.S. attempts to treat climate change as a diplomatic “oasis” that can be separated from the broader geopolitical tensions between the two sides, with U.S. trade sanctions on Chinese solar panels still a sore point.
The original article contains 500 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
China is the world’s biggest consumer of fossil fuels including coal and oil, and its special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua was responding to comments by ambassadors at a forum in Beijing on Thursday ahead of the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai in November.
The stocktake will be at the centre of discussions at the COP28 climate meeting, with campaigners hoping it will create the political will to set clear targets to end coal and oil use.
“It is unrealistic to completely phase out fossil fuel energy,” said Xie, who will represent China at COP28 this year.
While ending fossil fuel use would not be on the table at COP28, Xie said China was open to setting a global renewable energy target as long as it took the divergent economic conditions of different countries into account.
China and the United States, the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, resumed top-level climate talks in July after a hiatus brought about by U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China claims.
China has rejected U.S. attempts to treat climate change as a diplomatic “oasis” that can be separated from the broader geopolitical tensions between the two sides, with U.S. trade sanctions on Chinese solar panels still a sore point.
The original article contains 500 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!