The past year has seen some of the most encouraging steps from China to curb its emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. But an increasingly vocal nationalist faction of society is making some progress difficult.
There’s a battle over the climate change narrative between those pushing for green reforms and those who view the measures as bending to demands from hostile Western powers.
After President Xi Jinping announced last September that China would reach peak emissions before the end of the decade and achieve carbon-neutrality by 2060, officials and state-run companies largely fell in line and echoed his ambitions — even as some public figures have openly questioned the feasibility of moving away from coal and curbing economic drivers such as construction and steel-making.