Advertisement
Opinion | As the world says no to coal, China is poised to lead on green energy finance
- China’s deep pockets, experience in financing clean energy and dominance in the solar and wind sectors make it a natural leader in the global energy transition
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
13
With President Xi Jinping’s announcement at the 76th UN General Assembly that China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad”, all major public financiers of overseas coal plants have pledged to stop supporting the global coal industry.
Advertisement
This is a major moment for the global energy transition. But as world leaders meet at the G20 summit in Rome and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, it is time to pivot from being against financing overseas coal to being for a stage-by-stage increase in financing for green energy around the world. On this, China is poised to lead.
Western-backed multilateral development banks and national development banks operating overseas played a big role in financing overseas coal plants for decades.
But beginning with the World Bank in 2011, due to growing awareness and public pressure about the negative environmental and social impact of coal-fired power, many of these entities began phasing out overseas coal plants.
Last May, the G7 pledged to “take concrete steps towards an absolute end to new direct government support for unabated international thermal coal power generation by the end of 2021”.
Until Xi’s announcement, that left China as the last big public financier of overseas coal plants, having financed upwards of 41 gigawatts of operating coal power overseas since 2000 and accounting for 13 per cent of all overseas coal power capacity.
Advertisement