China, India, Brazil Take the Helm for the Next Climate Conference

China, India and Brazil are poised to lead the November Climate Change Conference of Parties (cop30) in Belem City, Brazil, the South China Morning Post reported Sunday. These nations, China in particular, are grabbing the helm in this summit as the United States disengages from international “green initiatives.”

‘Red’ environmentalism: Initiatives such as cop30 and the Paris Climate Agreement are branded as efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and restore global ecological health.

But as the Trumpet wrote after a previous cop summit, the true goal of “elites controlling the climate change conversation” is to “create a new world order—and to dismantle the current one. To do this, they must attack American dominance in energy and its economy, empower socialist dictatorships, demonize the free market, and destroy individual liberty.”

This is why international environmental initiatives push the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while leaving China, the world’s worst polluting nation by far, unfettered.

‘Open space’ for China: It makes sense for U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of anti-American initiatives such as cop30. Yet the U.S. withdrawal positions China to boost its global power.

With the climate retreat of the U.S. and growing domestic challenges in the European Union, countries such as Brazil, India and China and other emerging economies now have an open space to shape the global climate discourse.
—Li Shuo, Asia Society Policy Institute China Climate Hub

Learn more: To better understand China’s ambitions to use environmentalism to increase its power, read “Weaponizing Environmentalism.”