China's Decarbonisation Leadership: Is Trump (accidentally) fueling Beijing's climate takeover?
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the US retreats from international climate leadership and looks increasingly inwards, can China step up and steer the global energy transition? And if it can, what shape will that transition take?
In the latest of our country deep-dives, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson explore China’s pivotal and complex role in decarbonising our world. At home, the nation is a technology superpower, the driver behind the renewables and EV revolutions, and dominates the world in solar panels, batteries and green hydrogen. But it’s also a coal-powered polluter, with a history of taking a backseat in traditional climate diplomacy on the international stage. So, with global geopolitics and trade realigning, is it about to pick a lane?
To unpack all this, the team is joined by Li Shuo, Director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. At a time of flux, he outlines the complex forces shaping China’s strategy, and considers what we might expect to see from it in the years ahead.
Above all, one thing is clear: China’s role will be a defining force in the next decade of climate progress. And the impact of its action - or inaction - will be felt around the world.
Learn more
🔩 ‘China halts critical rare earth mineral exports as Trump teases new tariffs’ from the Independent
🔋 BloombergNEF’s update on global investments into the energy transition, highlighting China’s role
💥 ‘China hits out at Trump's "blackmail" and spells out conditions for ending trade war’ in TAG24
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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan
Executive Producer: Dino Sofos
Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to outrage and optimism. I'm Tom Rivikarnik. I'm Christiana Figueres. And I'm Paul |
| 0:07.4 | Dickinson. This week, in the face of Trump's tariffs, we talk about China's leadership on the world stage, |
| 0:13.1 | and we speak to Li Shu, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. |
| 0:19.4 | Thanks for being. So friends, we're coming back now |
| 0:23.0 | doing another episode on China. It's the first one for a couple of years, but it's a critical |
| 0:26.8 | moment to do it because as we said there in the opening, if we're going to continue to make |
| 0:31.0 | the progress that we really want to, China has been thrust into the forefront. And what is |
| 0:36.6 | going to happen over the next few months and |
| 0:38.0 | years is going to be critical in that country, more important than ever, and it's always been |
| 0:41.5 | important. So we're going to dive in here. There's a lot to unpack before we get to our brilliant |
| 0:45.3 | guest. But just before we do, I think there is news on Christiana's favorite topic. I am so |
| 0:51.4 | excited. I am just so excited. What is your favorite? Because I thought your favorite topic was litigation, but it's not. |
| 0:59.0 | You've got two favorite topics, which is impossible. |
| 1:01.0 | Well, I have several favorite topics. |
| 1:04.0 | The more the better. |
| 1:05.0 | Several. I hope everyone has several favorite topics. |
| 1:08.0 | Okay. So this week's favorite topic is the astonishing fact that the |
| 1:14.3 | IMO, which stands for the International Maritime Organization, headquartered in London, |
| 1:19.4 | and I used to live just a few blocks away from it, has just, after nearly 10 years of negotiations, |
| 1:32.2 | they have come to an agreement that says that starting in 2028, ship owners will have to use increasingly cleaner fuels or face fines that go up to |
| 1:41.0 | $380 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions if they are emitting those from their fuels. |
| 1:49.3 | That is amazing. It actually means that shipping is the first industry in the world with |
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