2021 Issue 45

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While the COP26 climate summit concluded this week in Glasgow, the People’s Republic of China continued to address the international event with a “deafening silence” marked by the absence of Xi Jinping and less than a 500-word online statement by the Chinese leader. Even as Beijing and Washington released an unexpected joint statement pledging to work towards reducing emissions, the Chinese Communist Party remained unwilling to make concrete commitments to the world and shunned joining the multilateral pacts to reduce methane emissions and limit fossil fuel funding.  As the world’s largest carbon emitter, larger than Europe and the United States combined, Beijing’s “participation” in COP26 was reminiscent of their concerted effort to undermine the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.