Xi's three-pronged proposal vitally important to address climate issue

Chinese President Xi Jinping's three-pronged proposal, including upholding multilateral consensus, focusing on concrete actions and accelerating the green transition, is vitally important for the world community to address climate challenge, foreign experts and scholars have said.

Xi made the proposal in a written statement for the World Leaders Summit at the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is being held in Glasgow, Scotland.

British author and political commentator Carlos Martinez said he "essentially agrees" with Xi's proposals during the COP26 conference. "The essential thing we need to do is to uphold multilateralism. We need to start working together, stop playing blame games," Martinez said.

He called on all parties to stick to the Paris Agreement and the framework of common but differentiated responsibilities to deal with climate issues. "Let's coordinate around how we can support developing countries, especially the least developed countries that don't have the financial and infrastructure resources to reduce carbon emissions," he added.

Antony Froggatt, deputy director of Environment and Society Programme Chatham House, a London-based think tank and also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said global cooperation and technical innovation are crucial for tackling global challenges like climate change.

He gave an example of cooperation among the European Union, China and the United States, saying that there are great potentials for the three sides to work together in renewable energy industry such as solar energy and wind energy.

"It is these three blocs that not only deliver the world's biggest deployment of technologies, but by doing so, can enable falling costs, which enables other countries also to deploy these technologies," he said.

Vice President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Danny Alexander said he believes that the green transition will be accelerated when addressing climate change. "Green investment can be a crucial part of the economic recovery over the next several years after the COVID-19 pandemic," as there is a huge need for clean energy and urban projects such as subways, light rails, water and sanitation projects, he noted.

"Every project now has to also be able to be adapted and resilient to climate change in the future," he added.

Pui Jeng Leong, a media veteran in Brunei, said President Xi's proposal of focusing on concrete actions is highly necessary. Actions speak louder than words in terms of efforts to cope with global climate change, he said, adding that China has been making all-out efforts to honor its carbon reduction commitments and push forward a comprehensive green transformation in development.