China declines to host COP33 climate summit in 2028 — The Guardian

China has declined to host the 33rd UN Climate Change Conference, COP33, in 2028. Under the rules of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the summit must be held in an Asian country that year. The Guardian reports on Beijing's decision following several months of discussions.

Candidates to host the summit

India also considered for several months submitting a bid to host COP33, but ultimately abandoned the idea. According to the publication, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand are considering submitting bids.

According to The Guardian's assessment, the host of COP33 is unlikely to be determined during COP31, which is currently underway in Turkey. The governments of Turkey and Australia are jointly presiding over this conference.

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Significance of the conference

COP33 is to include a global stocktake, a mechanism of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement used to assess countries' progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. The article notes that this threshold will be exceeded, so experts are calling for the scale of the overshoot to be minimized in order to reduce the effects of extreme weather events.

China's refusal disappointed some experts who had hoped that the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases would take on a more prominent role in international climate policy. Former US Vice President Albert Gore said he would support holding the summit in China.

According to the publication, China's renewable energy capacity has already surpassed its coal capacity, and its greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have declined slightly this year. At the same time, in India, which also declined to bid to host COP33, coal consumption is rising despite the country exceeding its own renewable energy development targets.