Opinion | Face it, China’s clean energy firms are key to Cop28 climate goals

This year’s Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai came right after the International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, held to strengthen and showcase China’s unbeatable manufacturing and logistics capabilities. Having attended both events, I see China’s connecting role as more important than ever.

The good news out of Cop28 is a historic agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. This calls for the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 and by 60 per cent by 2035, relative to 2019 levels. Considering the pace (or lack thereof) at which emissions reductions have occurred in the last few decades, this is an ambitious and tight timeline.

While China still has a very long way to go in cutting emissions and the use of coal on the path to carbon neutrality by 2060, no other country has invested more in clean energy technology. Last year, China invested an estimated US$546 billion in clean energy.

The global supply chain is evolving into a more complex matrix of production and assembly across countries and continents. The reasons for this are both economic and political. Businesses are looking to maintain profitability as the price of labour in China rises and its production capacity grows increasingly sophisticated, moving more rudimentary tasks elsewhere.