The world needs China to show more leadership in the fight against climate changesaid Sunday Wopke Hoekstra, EU climate commissioner, highlighting the importance of cutting the emissions that heat the planet and reducing the dependence that the Chinese economy has of coal.
Hoekstra is in Beijing to hold high -level conversations with Chinese officials about environmental and climatic issuesin which too He wants to encourage China to stop building new coal power plants and progressively eliminate the use of this fossil fuel.
“We encourage China to assume a leadership role in the future and throw a significant reduction in emissions In the next two years, in addition to leave the field of coal“Hoekstra told Reuters in an interview.
The number of electric coal plants in project has been increasing in ChinaeThe largest greenhouse gase emitter in the worldaccording to the World Economic Forum.
In the first three months of this year, The 11.29 Gigawatts (GW) of new coal plants approved in China exceeded the approval rate of the first semester of 2024showed a June report of the environmental organization Greenpeace.
Last week, Hoekstra told the Financial Times that the EU was postponing the signing of a joint statement on the climate with China Unless Beijing committed to a greater extent to reduce emissions.
“We are open to study a possible statement, but (…) the most important thing about this type of statements is its content”he said when asked about the issue, without specifying what commitment he expects to see the EU from China.
Hoekstra said the EU is interested in looking for areas of cooperation with China Facing the UN Conference on the Cop30 climate, which will be held in Brazil in November.
