In mid-October, as the Israel-Hamas war threatened to spill into a regional conflict, Sultan al-Jaber travelled to Beijing in pursuit of a diplomatic breakthrough on another existential problem: China’s climate change policy.It was the third trip by the president-designate of the UN COP28 climate summit to China this year. And his quiet shuttle diplomacy — albeit overshadowed by the conflict in the Middle East — highlights a deepening concern among western diplomats and experts that China’s President Xi Jinping might be wavering in his commitment to fight climate change.

China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for about 30 per cent of the global total, due to a massive reliance on coal-fuelled industry and power stations. But it is developing renewable energy rapidly. In 2020, Xi pledged two key targets — known as the shuang tan. First, that the country of 1.4bn people would reach peak CO? emissions by 2030. Second, that China will achieve net zero emissions by 2060.

The rise of China’s world-beating clean tech industry has propelled stunning growth in renewable energy installations, drawing cautious optimism over national climate change policy. Since 2021, though, the number of new coal-fired power plants has also surged, sparking fears that Xi’s policymakers are prioritising energy security and economic growth over climate pledges.