Help developing countries cope with climate change

In recent years, climate change has had an increasing impact globally, with frequent extreme weather events posing unprecedented challenges to people's lives and property as well as to economic and social development. Strengthening early warning systems and enhancing climate adaptation capacity have become increasingly important and urgent.

To that end, countries should improve their risk assessment capabilities and promote the standardization of climate risk assessments to provide scientific support for climate governance. They should also build a global early warning network, sharing technology, enhancing system interconnectivity, and work together to improve global early warning systems, and establish a climate adaptation partnership.

China is willing to work with all countries to advance the implementation of the United Nations' Early Warnings for All initiative, and make new and greater contributions to addressing climate change, Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang said on Tuesday when addressing a high-level meeting organized by China on the issue during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku, Azerbaijan.

During the meeting, China's Action Plan on Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation (2025-27) was published, demonstrating the country's determination to make the most of what it has to contribute to the global response to the challenge.

As part of these efforts, China intends to develop and implement a South-South cooperation flagship project for early warning in response to climate change, supporting other developing countries through the provision of meteorological observation equipment, early warning systems, and capacity-building training.

Aside from the pressing need to respond to the impacts of extreme weather, COP29 is considered a climate financing conference to address the long-term imbalanced funding problems that have been hindering global efforts to combat climate change. Its core agenda is to adopt a new climate finance target, which will be the first reassessment of the amount and type of funds received by developing countries for climate action in 15 years, and a new collective quantified target (NCQT) will be generated to replace the $100 billion annual target set in 2009.

This new target will help vulnerable countries adopt clean energy and other low-carbon solutions and build resilience to worsening climate impacts.

Developed and developing countries naturally have different views on issues such as the financiers, sources of funds, and scale of funds involved in addressing climate change. They should adhere to the principles, provisions and mandates of the Paris Agreement and ensure that the relevant provisions of the Paris Agreement are not renegotiated or rewritten.

Developed countries should accordingly fulfill their funding obligations and continue to take the lead in mobilizing funds, and encourage other countries to participate voluntarily.

To be specific, the developed countries should fulfill their commitment to donate $100 billion per year to developing countries before 2025, double their adaptation funding, and further expand the funding scale after 2025 as agreed before, and implement the NCQT if it can be agreed on during the COP29.

The funding source should be mainly public funds of developed economies. Through supporting global climate actions with public funds, rather than the private sector, the developed countries can send positive and stable policy signals to the international community.