{"id":49353,"date":"2023-10-19T13:28:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T12:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=49353"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:36:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T13:36:08","slug":"chinas-clean-energy-program-belt-and-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2023\/10\/19\/chinas-clean-energy-program-belt-and-road\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s Belt and Road gets ‘green’ reboot and spending boost"},"content":{"rendered":"

China has raised clean energy among the priorities of its flagship international investment programme, while promising an extra $100 billion in development funding.<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Xi Jinping said<\/a> China will \u201cfurther deepen cooperation\u201d in green infrastructure and energy projects with developing countries as part of a reboot of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).<\/p>\n

Xi unveiled his plans at a glitzy summit celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the infrastructure-focused initiative, which has built power plants, roads, and railways around the world and extended China\u2019s sphere of influence in over a hundred emerging economies.<\/p>\n

It has also faced<\/a> accusations of pushing low-income borrowers into unsustainable debt.<\/p>\n

‘Smaller and greener’<\/h3>\n

The revamp will attempt to breathe new life into the initiative after a lull. Lending levels plummeted<\/a> over the last couple of years as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and China\u2019s internal economic troubles.<\/p>\n

Now Beijing wants to make the Belt and Road smaller and greener<\/a>, shifting the focus away from colossal and polluting projects and into high-tech and clean energy.<\/p>\n

Africa and India<\/strong> push rich nations to phase out fossil fuels faster<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dimitri de Boer, regional director for Asia at ClientEarth, said the summit reinforced the idea that \u201cgreen is the base colour\u201d of the BRI. \u201cThere is a major opportunity here for advancing the global energy transition to mitigate climate change,\u201d he told Climate Home.<\/p>\n

Chatham House’s Bernice Lee says the real litmus test is whether the updated Belt and Road can support multiple objectives, beyond simply economic growth. “It is helpful that at a time when so many countries cut their aid spending someone is putting more into the pot, even though the proof is in the pudding as to whether it delivers long-term, lasting benefits”, she added.<\/p>\n

The green pivot is not an overnight move and comes two years after Xi pledged<\/a> China would stop building coal power plants overseas.<\/p>\n

Clean energy pivot<\/h3>\n

Fossil fuel infrastructure had absorbed nearly two-thirds of the energy-related funding committed through the Belt and Road up until then. Dozens of coal plants were built in countries like Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam, locking in carbon-intensive energy production for potentially decades.<\/p>\n

According to an analysis<\/a> by Boston University, Chinese-financed power plants emit more than 245 million tons of CO2 each year – roughly equivalent to Spain\u2019s annual carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

Since Xi\u2019s 2021 promise, however, no new coal plants have been developed and investment in renewables has taken off. In the first half of 2023, solar, wind and hydro took up<\/a> about 55% of energy-related construction and investment facilitated by the Belt and Road, according to Beijing-based Green Finance and Development Centre.<\/p>\n