As ministers of various countries participate in the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) via video link on Tuesday, observers said the US, with its bankrupted credibility and declining strength, may find it hard to rally its partners with very different interests to push forward the IPEF into the direction the US wants. Since the launch of the IPEF by US President Joe Biden during a visit to Tokyo in May, the initiative has been widely criticized for its lack of substance, and member countries have expressed concerns about the IPEF's missing of tariffs and market access arrangements and its exclusion of China, a vital economy in the region. As such, Chinese experts on international politics and trade said the Tuesday virtual meeting is more about the US effort to test the water and they do not expect concrete agreements to come out of the meeting. Any economic initiative in the region that excludes China will not work, they noted. Officials representing the 14 IPEF member countries are set to take part in the meeting, co-hosted by US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Topics for discussion at Tuesday's meeting include trade, supply chains, clean energy, infrastructure, taxes and combating corruption, according to media reports. The meeting, which could see the IPEF morph from a set of principles into possibly a more concrete shape, comes at a time when the Biden administration is weighing whether to lift some of the tariffs it had imposed on Chinese goods during the Trump administration to ease record high inflation.
India’s economy will become carbon neutral by the year 2070, the country’s prime minster has announced at the COP26 climate crisis summit in Glasgow. The target date is two decades beyond what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts. India is the last of the world’s major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the United States and the European Union aiming for 2050.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
A crucial U.N. conference heard calls on its first day for the world's major economies to keep their promises of financial help to address the climate crisis, while big polluters India and Brazil made new commitments to cut emissions. World leaders, environmental experts and activists all pleaded for decisive action to halt the global warming which threatens the future of the planet at the start of the two-week COP26 summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Monday. The task facing negotiators was made even more daunting by the failure of the Group of 20 major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments at the weekend.