Could China pull the plug on coal?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A letter sent to the Bangladeshi government suggests that Beijing may be clamping down on the biggest source of carbon emissions.
Justin Rowlatt speaks to the journalist who got the scoop - Jagaran Chakma of the Daily Star newspaper in Bangladesh. His nation is one of dozens of developing countries that need to build up their power sector, and had been looking to China to finance new coal-fired power stations under the Belt and Road initiative - something the letter pointedly said that Beijing would no longer do.
So could China be preparing to take a much harder line against coal than advertised - at home as well as abroad? And what does it all mean for the big Cop 26 climate negotiations due later this year? Justin speaks to researcher Rebecca Ray of Boston University, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and former United Nations climate negotiator Christiana Figueres.
Producers: Szu Ping Chan; Laurence Knight
(Picture: Street vendors and customers gather at a local market outside a state owned coal fired power plant in Huainan, China; Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily with me, Justin Rowlat. Now, normally, you'd expect a leaked letter |
| 0:07.8 | to reveal wrongdoing or even criminal activity. But we've got hold of one that tells a very different |
| 0:15.1 | story. It suggests China is secretly making dramatic cuts on polluting investments abroad. |
| 0:23.6 | If they are saying that to 140 nations, that would be a complete deal changer for climate change mitigation globally. |
| 0:30.6 | But why would China be low-balling the world on its efforts to reduce emissions? |
| 0:35.6 | The Chinese culture is typically to under-promise and over-deliver, |
| 0:41.3 | which actually is quite refreshing because most other countries and institutions |
| 0:45.7 | over-promise and under-delivered. |
| 0:48.0 | That's what we'll be asking on Business Daily here on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:56.4 | Hello. Thank you hear me? Hello. |
| 0:59.3 | We can hear you on this. Is it recording, all right? |
| 1:01.4 | Yeah, you're recording. We can start. |
| 1:03.7 | We can start the interview now. Jagaron, give me your full name and tell me your job. |
| 1:08.2 | My name is Jagaron Shakma. I'm working for the daily star, the top daily in Bangladesh. |
| 1:15.6 | Now, you got a very interesting story a couple of weeks back, didn't you? |
| 1:21.1 | You got hold of a letter from the Chinese embassy to the Bangladeshi government. |
| 1:26.4 | Can I ask you this as a journalist? |
| 1:28.3 | Can you tell me how you got that letter? |
| 1:30.7 | Definitely. |
| 1:32.0 | I have a source at the Ministry of Finance. |
| 1:36.4 | From that source, I collected that documents, which is very vital... |
| 1:42.3 | Jagaram is a reporter with Bangladesh's biggest English language newspaper. |
... |
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