By Kate Abnett and Tim Cocks
BRUSSELS/JOHANNSEBURG (Reuters) – China has put commerce talks onto the proposed agenda for the COP29 summit, a U.N. doc confirmed, elevating the prospect that the difficulty may disrupt the beginning of worldwide local weather talks.
The draft agenda for this yr’s local weather summit, printed on Friday, features a Chinese language proposal, beforehand reported by Reuters, for talks on carbon border taxes and different “restrictive commerce measures” that Beijing says harm creating international locations.
Delegates on the convention should undertake the summit agenda by consensus as their first process when the COP29 talks start on Nov. 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
However some diplomats stated the European Union is prone to oppose the Chinese language proposal.
Failure to approve the agenda may delay the beginning of negotiations – slicing into the time left for the primary process of approving doubtlessly lots of of billions of {dollars} in new funding to handle local weather change.
China submitted the commerce talks proposal on behalf of the BASIC group, which additionally consists of Brazil, India and South Africa.
“We’ll discuss it, relentlessly,” South Africa’s Setting Minister Dion George informed Reuters.
George stated BASIC international locations imagine the U.N. talks is the suitable discussion board by which to debate climate-related commerce insurance policies, together with the EU’s carbon border levy.
BASIC international locations have been robust critics of the EU carbon border coverage, which from 2026 will impose charges on imports of high-carbon items, together with metal and cement.
“We’re displeased about it and we do not assume it is good for our financial system,” George stated, including that South Africa and China are having “intense conversations” with the EU.
A European Fee spokesperson declined to remark.
The EU has beforehand stated disputes over commerce needs to be addressed on the World Commerce Group.
One European negotiator informed Reuters that it had “all the time been a no-go” to debate commerce measures equivalent to carbon border levies at U.N. local weather summits.
The negotiator expressed concern that the BASIC proposal was supposed to stop discussions at COP29 on slicing CO2 emissions and finance from shifting ahead.
A struggle over the agenda at a spherical of U.N. local weather negotiations in 2023 didn’t get resolved for greater than per week, successfully killing off progress on the talks.
