Ma Jun, Founder of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), on COP28
At CCG Thought Corner on Dec. 21, Ma Jun, leading environmentalist in China and active participant throughout COP28, shared his insights on environmental issues and key takeaways from COP28.
On Dec. 21, 2023, the Center for China & Globalization (CCG) Thought Corner, co-organized by the Global Young Leaders Dialogue Program (GYLD) and Global Shapers Community Beijing II Hub, explored the accomplishments thus far, especially after COP28, and the unmet challenges in climate change governance, action and resilience.
After Mabel Lu Miao, Co-Founder and Secretary-General of CCG, Founder of GYLD, delivered a welcoming speech, Ma Jun 马军, Founder of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) delivered a keynote speech on his takeways from the recent COP28 in Dubai, UAE. Mr. Ma's main ideas include:
COP28 was crucial as it was the first global stocktake since the Paris Agreement and the first COP to recognize the significance of trade, health, gender, and food.
However, COP28's success can be partially attributed to lowered expectations due to the host country (UAE)'s status as a major oil producer and the COP28 president's position as the head of the largest national oil company of UAE.
China-U.S. diplomatic collaboration on climate change, marked by the Sunnylands Statement, was vital for COP28's success. The emissions goals in the Statements were instrumental in shaping the agendas of COP28 and facilitating the smooth adoption of UAE consensus.
The triple Planetary Crisis: climate change, and biodiversity losses and environmental pollution, demands synergistic solutions to address these interconnected issues. This ensures that addressing climate change does not "hijack" other critical environmental issues.
Unlike the sequential development often seen in Western countries, China's experience in simultaneously addressing climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss has presented the country with lessons and experience in the implementation of integrated solutions.
The event also featured a keynote speech by Andy Yinan Hu, Director of Corporate Communications at Huawei on Huawei's and the Chinese private sector's increasing participation in COP. A panel discussion and a Q&A session were also part of the program. These transcripts will be published later on CCG Update.
Ma Jun
Founder of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE)
Thank you. Thank you Director Zhao. And I thank Madam Miao for your kind invitation to the CCG event, another event I’ve participated. It's such an honor. CCG had played such a pivotal role in forging, formulating, and facilitating China's diplomacy from the non-governmental sectors with major partners globally. I bumped into the CCG’s leaders and founders in various meetings and I was really impressed. So I feel sorry that I wouldn't be able to join you in person. Part of the reason is because there are so many sharing reviews of the COP28 meetings. Yesterday we had one and today['s event] is related. And tomorrow I'm heading to Shenzhen for another meeting over there. So it's all related to the COP28.
So obviously, this is the real hot topic at this moment. Today we also joked that this is the coldest winter in the hottest year on record. And with the temperature set to break the record this year, this has created a sense of urgency from the global society.
This COP 28, I think, of course, is a very important COP meeting because this is the first stocktake since Paris Agreement was signed. And in this first stocktake, the rising temperature and increasing frequency of the extreme weather events globally, I think, have really created this sense of urgency.
Progress have been made, but in the meantime, we're so off track, so far off track from the 1.5℃ trajectory, our target. There's no reliable pathway toward achieving this 1.5℃ target. So this is the backdrop.
Coming back from COP, I think I kind of feel that more people feel happy with this COP. More people kind of feel that this is a very good meeting and some even call it a landmark or historic COP meeting, the most important ever since the Paris Agreement was signed. I think part of the reason for that is because the expectations were set so low before the COP28 — a major global oil producing country was selected as the host for this COP28 with the president serving as the head of the largest national oil company of UAE. So this choice has been considered as quite controversial even before the COP 28. So there is a significantly lower expectation for any deal to be made on this issue of the fossil fuel.
But the host country has made a very good opening on the first day of the COP meeting. The UAE has taken a surprise move by donating $100 million to the Loss and Damage Fund, and then made further commitment to provide $30 billion to climate finance. So, I think all of this have significantly reduced this sense of unfairness and grievances by the countries, small island countries and the least developed and the most vulnerable countries, and prevent this one issue of Loss and Damage Fund and compensation to become the only focal point in the first week of this meeting. So then more focus can be made more on the issue of mitigation and adaptation, a lot easier than the several previous calls.
And, of course, more important for the success of this COP meeting is actually on the diplomacy side. Before this meeting, before the COP, China and U.S. have signed the Sunnylands Statement on climate change. The two special envoys, special envoy Xie Zhenhua and John Kerry from the United States have signed that joint declaration. And when the presidents of the two countries met together, they basically endorsed a joint action to deal with climate change.
I think this is extremely important. These two countries are the largest economies in the world. But more than that, their combined emissions are over 40% of the global carbon emissions.
Without these two countries coming to agreement on all these issues, it will be very hard for the first stocktake to be made so smoothly and for the UAE consensus document to be signed. I think that will be near impossible. And basically, this has prevented all this geopolitical attention to distract all this multilateral process.
So this is extremely important. And if we review the Sunnylands Declaration, we can see that some of what's considered to be historic or landmark, a deal that incorporated in the so-called UAE consensus meeting document, has actually been agreed in this joint declaration between China and the U.S. For example, the most important is the agreement on tripling the capacity of renewable energy and doubling the energy efficiency by 2030. I think already the two countries agreed on that. And then on the issue of non-carbon greenhouse gases like methane, this was also agreed by these two countries first. And on the energy efficiency and all of this.
So this is again another very important factor for the success. But I think what was even equally important, if not more, is about China's contribution to the COP meeting. Not only did China send a strong delegation with thousands of participants from China — we need to remember last year during COVID, the Chinese delegation was only less than 100, and this time it's about thousands — and that’s not just about the size, but China's contribution is actually about the solid actions taken and the pragmatic solutions developed in China.
The reason for so many countries, more than 130 country to be able to come together to commit to tripling the global renewable energy capacity is because in China, China has a really created an enormous not just manufacturing and supplying capacity, but in the meantime created all these innovative solutions, which help to cut the cost of renewable energy significantly, especially on the wind and solar energy. And the cost has been cut by 80 to 90 percent in slightly over 10 years of time. So that's the cost reduction. And in the meantime, China is supplying the world with its 80% of the solar panels, 50% of the wind turbines and about 60% of the batteries used for electric vehicles. So, this is a tremendous volume, tremendous capacity, and some of the best technologies also being developed here. So, I think this is a huge contribution.
The real big news at this COP is that at the last moment, all the 198 countries agreed to this UAE consensus document that basically for the first time in human's history, has committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels in the energy system. Fossil fuels, we all know, have been the energy that power the entire human society since the Industrial Revolution. So much of our modern civilization is related to that. And then with so many countries in so many different development phases, and some of them highly dependent on fossil fuels for their income and some of them still underdeveloped and lack access to basic energy service — for all of these countries to agree with this term "transitioning away" is not easy. It's compromised. Yes. It's not "phasing out" and not even "phasing down." But still, this can be considered as significant, as historic.
I think much of the reason for this to be achieved is because people feel that there are some realistic, pragmatic solutions and some feasible pathways toward the transition.
And of course, what happened in China is not just about the massive capacity to supply others. It's also because of China's quick, very quick, rapid transitioning of its energy system.
Yes, due to all these complicated global factors, including the COVID and then the turbulent market, and particularly the geopolitical attention, China had to go back to coal power over the past two years. But in the meantime, China has relentlessly tried to push forward the deployment of the renewable energy on the wind and solar side. I’ll just give one number on this issue of solar power: by the end of last year, China's solar power capacity is close to 400 GW; but this year alone in the first 10 months, another 140 GW have been added to that. This is the speed in China. So, this one,I think, is highly encouraging.
On the methane side, as I mentioned, all non-carbon greenhouse gases will be included in the in the next NDCs. All these countries agreed with the document to include all the other [non-carbon greenhouse gases] so this is also a real breakthrough as well.
And then the issue in China that the heavy emitting sectors have accounted for a very big share in its energy-related emission. And globally, it is also the case. This time there's a global agreement for all these initiatives to decarbonize all those heavy-emitting sectors including iron, steel, cement and aluminum and others.
So all these are important. And to me, I participated in quite a few events. We launched two reports: one on China's pragmatic solutions along with the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences and Friends of the Earth (HK), and another one on the solar power plus reimagination along with Tsinghua University’s research team.
I also participated in some of the discussions in the China Pavilion on the issue of trade, which has been highlighted as one of the key issue for the first time in this COP. Of course, health has also, for the first time, been considered and been recognized, and gender, and food. There are many first times. So these 100,000 participants are the largest ever in the COP history and with so many things being touched upon.
The sessions I participated in is related to trade, about whether we should push for bringing the global trading system through unilateral solutions like CBAM, or we should actually try to solve the problem under the multilateral framework such as WTO. So I discussed with WTO experts on that. And then on the issue of health, I participated in the Energy Foundation’s discussion about the air quality plus the energy transition and the carbon reduction climate action. UAE ironically is also suffering from quite serious air pollution problem. I checked our Blue Map app every day. And every night, the air quality dropped; and most of the mornings were not suitable for outdoor intensive exercises, unfortunately. So this is an issue that actually troubles many developing countries and emerging market countries. So all of these are related.
I just wanna conclude by saying that this COP28 has been making some real good progress but all of this are still on paper. As in this COP's three-word theme "Unite, Act, Deliver," by the end of the day, all these commitments need to be tested by time. So how to put it into real action and how to deliver on that, I think, is the most important [imperative].
I'm so happy to have the chance to talk with you and I stop here. Thank you very much.
John Zhanjie Zhao
Deputy Director, Government Project Cooperation Department of CCG
Thank you, Mr. Ma. I think it's a very comprehensive speech and highlights every outcome of this COP28.
I have a actually a question for you. I know your organization is the the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, and your first book is China's Water Crisis. So, you do not just care about the only the climate change, but also the air quality, the water, and maybe the biodiversity. And there a saying that goes “the climate change is hijacking other environmental topics”. So how do you think we can keep pushing the climate change cause but simultaneously, push forward other environmental topics?
Ma Jun
Founder of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE)
Thank you very much and thank you for your question. And I very much agree with you that we should not allow one single issue to dominate all the discussion because we have many other issues that also deserve attention.
I mentioned the pollution issue. Air pollution is the cause for 7 million premature deaths every year globally. So this is a very significant issue that we need to pay attention to. The freshwater resources, biodiversity, water pollution, and the plastic, and all of these deserve attention.
So now we're facing a multiple set of challenges. The so-called triple Planetary Crisis are going on: climate change, biodiversity losses and environmental pollution problems. So, we need to do something with them but there are only limited resources. And so the best way to deal with that is to create synergy, to try to create synergistic solutions.
And with that, China has some, of course, lessons learned, but also some experiences and pragmatic solutions developed. It's because we're facing this issue together unlike the Western countries where there's some sequence between the one and another. But in China, it's all happening together and so we have to deal with them in an integrated way.
Increasingly, the next step is to try to integrate the actions, the solutions of all these problems. Particularly, there's a tremendous synergy between the climate actions and the pollution control efforts in China. Just think about, for example, on the transportation and pollution emission problem. If we continue to raise the quality of the fuel and impose all the requirements for all these fossil and gas-powered vehicles to enhance their emissions control, and we also transition to new energy vehicles, that will obviously achieve the two targets together. China now has more than half of the global electric cars running in Chinese streets — 18 million of them. It's very helpful for the reduction of transportation emission.
For example, on the high-energy sectors such as iron and steel, if we can require them just to install all this very costly equipment, but in the meantime, if we can require the half them to try to create integrated solution, it can cut both the local pollution and the carbon emissions by half with the, for example, electric furnace instead of the long process [sic]. And then if we can use recycled iron and steel, it can further drop significantly. So there are all these integrated solutions
The Chinese government, in its new documents, has called for the synergy between four issues: 1) carbon reduction, 2) pollution control, 3) the expansion of green, meaning biodiversity, and 4) last but not least, high-quality growth. So all these renewable energy sectors and the electric cars, the booming of all these sectors have created new growth points. I think that's highly promising.
I am again gonna travel over the next week to our neighboring countries because globally in this COP, I've been approached by NGOs from Africa, from ASEAN countries, who are very interested in China's solutions developed to deal with both local pollution, air and water pollution, and also the climate change.
So with all these solutions, we're happy to work together with our all these Belt and Road countries and other countries globally, particularly the Global South countries to try to address the problems. Thank you.
Again, the keynote speech by Andy Yinan Hu, Director of Corporate Communications at Huawei, on Huawei's and the Chinese private sector's increasing participation in COP, as well as the panel discussion and the Q&A session from the same event will be published later on CCG Update.