World’s Worst Polluter, China, Vows Presence at U.N. Climate Summit

China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Wednesday that it will send a delegation to the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkey in November, to “actively promote the international climate negotiations.”

China is, by far, the worst polluter in the world and it rakes in considerable profits from its near-monopoly on the materials for green energy products like solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs). Yet it presents itself as a humble, concerned citizen of the Earth at conferences like COP31 and the climate movement seems generally inclined to go along with the routine.

“China supports COP31 in prioritizing implementation and addressing both longstanding issues, such as insufficient emissions reductions and inadequate financial support from developed countries, and emerging challenges, including unilateralism and protectionism that undermine collective climate action,” said Vice Minister of Ecology and the Environment Li Gao at a press conference on Wednesday.

Li expressed China’s support for the Paris climate agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and said “progress should also be made on climate finance,” including “in-depth discussions on a roadmap for developed countries to deliver the $300 billion climate finance goal by 2035 and to triple adaptation finance.”

Li also called for “the establishment of international mechanisms for a just transition, helping countries, particularly developing countries, address transition-related challenges and narrow the gap between the Global North and the Global South.”

China is not expected to be paying any of these bills because it does not consider itself to be a “developed country,” even though it is currently the second-largest economy in the world and a voracious consumer of fossil fuel energy.

China postures as a developing nation, as Li said at his press conference, so it would not be on the business end of climate-themed wealth redistribution from the “Global North” to the “Global South.” These are conceptual designations, not statements of geographic reality, so China is not part of the “Global North” even though it also claims to be an Arctic power.

Li made much of China’s surging green energy production, saying China’s solar power capacity exceeded its coal power capacity for the first time this year, and it has become the world’s top producer of EVs. He also boasted that China now leads the world in nuclear power, combining installed capacity with power plants under construction.

Li forgot to mention that China’s coal fired power generation is still increasing, with consumption forecast to increase by over three percent this year. This increase was partly due to reduced shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the Middle East due to the Iran war – and also due to surging demand for electricity to power data centers, EVs, and air conditioning.

In a June 2026 analysis, Reuters noted that China’s “renewable energy” generation did surpass coal power in 2025, but this was partly due to sharply reduced demand in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Renewable power construction beat some of China’s early projections for the “transition” to green energy, but actual electricity generation is lagging behind demand, in part due to unpredictable weather fluctuations – poor wind conditions for wind turbines, drought or floods plaguing hydropower plants, and so forth. China still needs fossil fuels – oil, gas, and coal – to meet peak demand, and it is still building new coal-fired power plants.

One of the big concerns among energy analysts is that China might not have enough coal for the winter of 2026, as coal production is down and imports have declined. Demand for coal power rose when LNG imports declined, cleaning out inventories. Production also declined in May due to a major disaster at the Liushyenyu Coal Mine, which killed at least 82 people.

Even with its reduced production and imports over the summer, China remains the world’s largest consumer of coal, accounting for more than half of worldwide demand, and China is still the world’s largest emitter of “greenhouse gases.” According to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), air pollution causes about two million deaths in China every year.