Paris, April 17 (Nouvelle Solidarité)—While President Xi Jinping has an idea of how he will accomplish carbon neutrality in 2060, without endangering the rise in living standards of his population, Emmanuel Macron has a different agenda in mind, which the Elysee communiqué following the France-Germany-China video summit of April 16 expresses without ambiguity.
“The President of the Republic and the German Chancellor brought up with President Xi what was expected in terms of a high level of ambition and tangible results on climate change, and in particular of carbon neutrality. By putting an end to financing of coal plants, China will contribute in a decisive manner to this end. President Xi reaffirmed his engagement to reach the peak of emissions by 2030...
“The President of the Republic and the German Chancellor insisted on the necessity of orienting international financing towards projects in conformity with durable development and the Paris accords...
France and Germany “invited China to contribute within the WHO, to the improvement of mechanisms of prevention and epidemic alerts and to a transparent and independent evaluation of the epidemic. They agreed that the ACT-A initiative, including the COVAX facility, were at the heart of the international response aimed at improving efficiently and equitably aid and assistance to the more vulnerable countries.”
While it is of course fine to investigate and learn more about the origins of the outbreak, the idea that Chinese shortcomings in alerting the world to the danger posed by the coronavirus caused major public health problems simply is not accurate. France, which has sadly lost nearly 1,500 per million people to the coronavirus, may not be in a position to claim that it made the best use of what Macron is implicitly calling tardy information from China. In comparison, Australia lost under 40 lives per million, and China itself, under 4.
