The growing divide between the West, China and the Global South could be on show at this month’s UN Climate Conference COP28, where an alliance of EU nations will push for a global commitment to phase out new coal production despite it being the fuel of choice in much of Asia and the developing world.
The so-called “High Ambition Coalition” (HAC) is an informal 15-nation bloc within the UN primarily consisting of EU member states as well as the UK. The group is pushing for more aggressive climate goals and lobbying against the use of carbon capture technologies often by poorer nations.
The group has already published a statement demanding the “urgent phas[ing] out of coal-fired power generation” ahead of this month’s COP28 Summit in the Unite Arab Emirates as well as calling for a 45% reduction in methane emissions by 2030.
HAC’s climate zealotry has already put it at odds with many Middle Eastern countries who have proposed climate capture technology as a way to offset more immediate cuts in lucrative fossil fuel production.
Chief among any likely opponents to HAC will be China which is undergoing a renaissance in coal-fired power generation, approving the carbon equivalent of two power plants every week.
China has already signalled its opposition to Western-led attacks on coal power in the lead-up to COP28 and has pushed for Europe and America to direct climate funds to the Global South.
COP28 has already been marred by controversy, even before negotiators have sat down, over the use of low-paid migrant workers, the presence of industrial lobbyists as well as leaked documents showing the UAE government’s insistence that the topic of Yemen or its alleged involvement in human trafficking won’t be brought up.
The climate talks are expected to be a showcase for recent geopolitical tensions between the West, Russia, and China as well as hostilities in the Middle East. The EU’s energy commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, warned that COP28’s agenda was already on the cusp of being derailed by the new multipolar order.
