As world leaders gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the UN climate change conference Cop29, an opportunity has arisen to align climate action with economic initiatives, in particular the Belt and Road Initiative.

One of the largest infrastructure programmes in history, the Chinese initiative was launched in 2013 to enhance global connectivity and economic integration across Asia, Europe and Africa. Recognising the environmental challenges, China is focusing on a green transformation of the Belt and Road Initiative.

With participation from over 140 countries and about US$1 trillion invested since its inception, the initiative holds enormous potential for promoting sustainable development. Azerbaijan, as Cop29 host, and China, as architect of a green Belt and Road Initiative, can work together to support the initiative’s evolution.

Nearly every belt and road country is represented at Cop29, united by a shared goal: to make their projects and nations greener and more sustainable. This is an excellent starting point for collaboration. In particular, Cop29 can catalyse the “greening” of the belt and road by acting as a platform for the Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition (BRIGC).

Established in 2019, the BRIGC is a collaborative platform that brings together governments, corporations and environmental organisations to promote sustainable practices within the belt and road framework. Its primary responsibility is to ensure the projects meet high environmental criteria and contribute to global sustainability objectives.

For the BRIGC, Cop29 provides an excellent opportunity to form strategic partnerships and share knowledge. By fostering collaborations with global partners, the BRIGC can enhance the Belt and Road Initiative’s capacity to implement green technologies and practices across diverse regions.

This collaborative environment is critical to the scaling up of successful green initiatives and to ensure their widespread adoption. Through dialogues and workshops, the BRIGC can exchange best practices and innovative solutions for green infrastructure. Such knowledge-sharing is vital for the replicating of successful models and to overcome the challenges in different belt and road countries, and can accelerate the achievement of sustainability targets.

China is firmly committed to the energy transition, with a US$676 billion investment in green technology last year, leading global investment in this sector with its 38 per cent share. Since its 2021 pledge to curb overseas coal financing, its green energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative have been rising, reaching US$7.9 billion last year for solar and wind energy projects, and US$1.6 billion for hydropower.

Over the next two decades, China intends to increase its efforts by investing over US$6 trillion in low-carbon power generation and clean energy technologies. Cop29 should draw more attention to these efforts and promote investment and innovation so green belt and road programmes can meet their ambitious goals.

For example, Cop29 brings together stakeholders from all over the world, providing an excellent chance for Chinese state-owned enterprises and private organisations that are pioneers in the renewable energy industry to network, collaborate and scale up their initiatives globally. Exhibitions and demonstrations of solar, wind and smart grid technologies by Chinese companies can inspire similar investments globally, accelerating the shift to renewable energy.

Financial backing remains a cornerstone of success for a green Belt and Road Initiative. Cop29, which is dedicated to financing green initiatives, especially for developing countries, can play a crucial role in advocating for increased financial support.

China offers financing for green technologies through institutions it has established such as the South-South Climate Cooperation Fund, Silk Road Fund and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The Beijing-headquartered AIIB, in particular, commits to making climate finance at least half of its annual financing approvals.

A financial infusion can extend the reach of the green belt and road to regions like Southeast Asia and Africa, with countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Kenya and Ethiopia standing to benefit immensely.

Delegates from belt and road countries taking part in Cop29 can see for themselves the success of the China-Azerbaijan green collaboration. Not far from the conference venue is the 230MW Garadagh solar power plant, and further is the 1,280MW Mingachevir thermal power project, both prime examples of sustainable infrastructure. Just the Garadagh plant alone is estimated to supply electricity to 110,000 households, cutting carbon emissions by 200,000 tonnes per year. Visiting these sites would provide valuable insights into the sustainable future offered by a green Belt and Road Initiative.

Linking Cop29 with China’s green Belt and Road Initiative would entail significant challenges. Firstly, ensuring balanced economic growth with environmental responsibility demands stringent governance and an adherence to sustainability standards across diverse belt and road countries. Coordinating among nations with varying regulatory frameworks and priorities also complicates the uniform implementation of green initiatives. In addition, securing consistent and adequate funding for sustainable projects remains a hurdle.

Despite being relatively new, the BRIGC shows a viable model for addressing these issues by overseeing the implementation of environmental standards and ensuring the investments contribute to long-term sustainability.

In conclusion, for the green Belt and Road Initiative, Cop29 in Azerbaijan is poised to be a transformative event. If Cop29 is used as a platform for the BRIGC to showcase successful belt and road projects, form strategic partnerships, share knowledge, secure commitments and promote high environmental standards, it can significantly advance belt and road green targets.

The alignment of climate action with economic initiatives such as China’s belt and road programme will be essential in the shaping of a resilient and sustainable future. With the potential to substantially reduce global carbon emissions and promote sustainable development across multiple continents, Cop29 could help to push the Belt and Road Initiative in its new phase of impactful, environmentally responsible growth.

The good news is that thanks to advances in China, Japan, Europe and the United States, the technology that is needed to meet these targets stands ready. All that is necessary is to provide the right incentives and financing. The bad news is that rather than rising to the challenge, negotiations on financing appear mired in a finger-pointing exercise where some countries are blaming others for not paying their fair share of the cost.

It is simply not the case that China lags behind in this aspect. New research indicates that China is a leader in global climate finance. In the alphabet soup of United Nations climate acronyms, what is at stake is the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance.

Rich nations pledged at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 to provide US$100 billion of climate finance to developing countries by 2020. Those countries only made good on that goal in 2022, and now many of them are calling on India and China to step up and contribute as well.

Pointing fingers at China, which is already a leader in climate finance, will not cause it to raise its ambitions. A paper released in September by the Washington-based Centre for Global Development puts China’s climate finance contributions at about US$34 billion by 2021, or US$4 billion annually since 2013.

The World Resources Institute, a global authority on climate finance, employed the same methodology that the United Nations uses for climate finance but adopted a broader range of available data sets. It found that from 2013 to 2022 China provided upwards of US$45 billion. This would put China sixth in global climate finance contributions, behind Japan, Germany, the US, France and the United Kingdom.

According to China’s own estimates, which were published recently, it has provided more than 177 billion yuan (US$24.4 billion) in climate finance to developing countries. This estimate is smaller than those of the Centre for Global Development or World Resources Institute because it focuses on the period from 2016 to 2022, but on an annual basis the figure would be about 25.3 billion yuan, a similar amount to those from the third-party estimates.

The Belt and Road Inititiave International Green Development Coalition, the author of the China estimate, notes that the above figure does not include two recent large pledges. China announced pledges of US$100 billion in loans at the Belt and Road Forum in October last year and US$50 billion for African countries during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in September. Both pledges are primarily focused on clean energy projects.

Data released earlier this month by the Global Development Policy Centre at Boston University shows that the Export-Import Bank of China provided loans worth US$502 million last year for renewable energy projects in Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Uganda. In addition, China unveiled its Green Investment and Finance Partnership at last year’s Belt and Road Forum in hopes of driving issuance of green bonds for overseas engagement and new green standards for China’s overseas banking.

The US paled in comparison to China’s forward-thinking presentation of its overseas support as top climate envoy John Podesta tried to reassure the world that his country would continue its support for the climate fight despite global concern that Donald Trump will pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement again when he takes office as president.

Despite these developments, the US and China co-hosted a meeting on methane and other non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases during the climate summit in Azerbaijan. At the meeting, China’s climate envoy Liu Zhenmin called for “constructive dialogue” with the incoming Trump administration in the hope that at least some level of climate cooperation being maintained.

The meeting between President Xi Jinping and his outgoing counterpart US President Joe Biden a few days ago during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum included acknowledgement of the two countries’ cooperation on climate change. Now, with the prospect of the US departing the stage again, China’s efforts must be unwavering.

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The evidence shows China is already one of the largest providers of climate finance. If anything, the only thing China is guilty of is being too modest and not properly communicating its global leadership.

It is important for China to raise its ambition on overseas climate finance moving forward and be more communicative about its leadership. Meanwhile, the rest of the world should stop pointing fingers and start reaching for its wallet.

By Magsud Mammadov, Kevin P. Gallagher andJianyu Zhang on November 19-20 for the South China Morning Post.