Today is a public holiday in South Africa – Human Rights Day. There’s a certain irony in spending the day focusing on China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vladimir Putin, knee-deep in a human rights disaster.
What one makes of the Ukraine crisis increasingly maps on where one lives. This is made clear by a remarkable new set of polling data recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations ...
Category: Climate Change
“Blue-ing” the BRI for Coastal Ecosystems and Communities
By Rebecca Ray Over the last week, China has presided over the Council of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal. China has chaired COP15 since the COVID-19 pandemic prevented countries from convening ...
Partially Chinese-Financed Hydropower Dam Cuts Power Deliveries to Zambia, Zimbabwe Due to Lack of Water
Environmentalists have warned for years that southern Africa's Chinese-financed hydroelectric building binge would eventually collide with the reality that the region doesn't have enough water. Officials at the Zambezi River Authority that runs the Kariba Dam announced
COP27 Side Deals Have Global Implications
This year's COP27 climate gathering in Egypt inspired both celebration and disappointment. While the establishment of a Loss and Damage fund was a major victory, patchy follow-through on earlier commitments from rich countries raise doubts about its actual effectiveness.
Why the Fate of the New COP27 “Loss and Damage” Climate Fund Depends on China
Negotiators from 200 countries at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt worked overtime this weekend to finalize a controversial funding proposal that would facilitate wealthy countries to compensate developing states for "loss and damages" wrought by climate change.
Will China and Wealthy Countries Pay For Climate Damage in the Global South?
Join us for a very lively end-of-week show where Eric, Cobus, and Geraud get into a spirited debate over whether China, India, and wealthy countries will pay for the damage they've caused to poor countries in Africa and elsewhere from global ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Xi Bets on Global South in Moscow
WEEK IN REVIEW: The G77 Bloc of Countries Together With China To Propose a New “Loss and Damage” Fund at the COP27 Summit
The G77 bloc of countries together with China is reportedly going to propose a new "loss and damage" fund at the COP27 summit to provide finance to poor countries impacted by climate disasters. The fund appears to be a repackaged version of the failed "climate adaptation fund" that wealthy ...
As COP27 Races to an Agreement, Things are Getting Real Awkward
The COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, will soon head into its final stage when delegates will wrestle through the night to finalize the wording of the agreement. The summit saw the emergence of major fault lines between ...
EU Border Tax Proposal Sparks BASIC Backlash
An EU proposal at COP27 to tax carbon-intensive products like cement and steel is drawing resistance from a group of developing countries. At a ministerial meeting of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group on the COP sidelines, officials said:
Nickel and Diming Poor Countries on Loss and Damage Will Bite the Global North
The debate about compensating the Global South for loss and damage relating to climate change at the COP27 climate summit sparked a debate at the China Global South Project. This column is in response to Eric's take yesterday. The ...
How Host Country Policies are Driving Chinese Finance for Renewables
By Rishikesh Ram Bhandary The Egyptian government, host of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), has dubbed this meeting the “implementation COP.” For many developing countries, international finance is a key enabler that allows ...