From BBC
The WhatsApp message was from the chief negotiator of one of the most powerful countries at the COP climate gathering. Could I stop by for a chat, he asked.
As his team hunched over computers eating takeaway pizza, he raged about the obstructionist behaviour of many of the other teams at the conference.
So far, so normal. Others had been saying versions of this all week – that this was the worst COP ever; that negotiating texts, which are meant to get smaller as deadlines approached, were in fact ballooning; that COP in its current form might be dead in the water…
Looming over it all was the prospect of US president-elect Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the COP process when he takes office for a second time. He has called climate action a “scam” and, at his victory celebration in West Palm Beach earlier this month, vowed to boost US oil production beyond its current record levels, saying, “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world”.
But there was one positive: China.
“It’s the only bright spot in all of this is,” the chief negotiator told me. Not only was its negotiating style markedly different to previous years, but he also observed that, as he puts it, “China could be stepping forward.”
Another sign that this may be the case came at the start of the conference, when China made public details of its climate funding. Traditionally, China has released minimal information about its climate policies and plans, so it came as a surprise when, for the first time, officials said they have paid developing countries more than $24 billion for climate action since 2016.
“That’s serious money, almost nobody else is at that level,” one
