China Owes Climate Accountability to South Asia

Over the last two decades, China has emerged as a Global South leader in green technology innovation and development, facilitating the green transition both domestically and abroad. This feat also positioned it as central to the climate discourse in South Asia pertaining to Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (the CBDR-RC principle). And this is rightly so. China accounts for 33 percent of the share of global greenhouse gas emissions, with around 13.1 billion tons, making it the top emitter in Asia. India, in second place, emits around four times less than China (around 3.15 billion tons). But the discourse on Beijing’s responsibility and accountability stems not only from its massive contribution to global gas emissions, but also from its capability as a green technology provider, and to a large extent, from its position as an upstream actor that affects shared regional ecosystems and vulnerable neighbors. We begin with geography. There are two facts to note here. One, China’s upstream disposition. Second, and related, the fact that the South Asian nations rank among the most vulnerable to climate-induced heatwaves, floods, and sea-level rise, despite a smaller share of historical global emissions. Various catastrophic incidents back this. After the devastation of Nepal’s Rasuwa district in August 2026 in a transborder glacial flood, environmental specialists noted around 25 glacial lakes within China that can affect Nepal and the adjacent region. Just over a year before, in July 2025, there was another flood outburst that began in China’s Gyirong County before causing damage and deaths in Nepal. Without commenting on causation, one can note that these hazards are highly asymmetric: risks originate upstream and casualties are borne downstream. This risk asymmetry makes the tasks of real-time hydrological data sharing and joint monitoring a matter of accountability and responsibility. Similarly, China-India collaboration on climate security can be operationalized to enable accurate forecasting and create shared data for tracking glacier melt. However, China has resisted this transparent climate cooperation, increasing India’s vulnerability to floods and water shocks. China holds itself up as the leader of the Global South in climate negotiations. However, the actual outcomes from this claim are rather feeble. Between 2013 and 2022, China provided and mobilized about $45 billion to support developing countries’ climate actions. Indeed, under the UNFCCC, China, being a developing country, is under no formal obligation to provide climate finance and hence all its efforts are voluntary rather than mandatory. This may be appreciable, but given its claim as the Global South’s representative, one must invoke the CBDR principle to hold Beijing accountable for cross-border hazard prevention and mitigation. Given the clean technology economic boom in China, it stands out from other developing countries for its growing participation in climate finance via private investment channels. Consequently, there are growing conversations about Beijing’s funding obligation to the $1.3 trillion corpus to support climate action in other developing countries. China is the world’s largest producer of renewable power. However, the rise in the clean energy system is supplementing, not replacing, fossil fuels. China added 78 GW of new coal power capacity in 2025, reaching a multi-year record. Although annual tallies of new coal power projects are down slightly from the 2022-23 peak, in the first half of 2025 China approved more coal-fired plants than it had in a decade. The long-term contractual lock-ins guarantee minimum purchase of coal-generated power by utilities, compelling grid operators to prioritize coal even when clean, cheaper wind and solar power are abundant. These guaranteed offtakes by the state, which are no less than a subsidy to coal plants in effect, lead to a fall in emissions in percentage terms without impacting it much in absolute terms. And China’s climatically vulnerable neighbors like Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh bear the real cost. Becoming a leader in clean energy by showcasing good emissions figures relative to GDP is one thing; an actual reduction in emissions in absolute figures is another question entirely. Thus, one sees an externality problem. Beijing captures the economic benefits from coal plants by providing them purchase guarantees. Meanwhile, its emissions increase the risk of climate disaster for its neighbors – a risk that China is not proactively addressing through timely information-sharing. Of course, discussions of China’s responsibility can’t take away from the West’s still-greater responsibility to address climate issues. However, given geographical proximity and leadership, discussions of climate responsibility and accountability must include China, given the recent environmental hazards in the fragile ecosystem of the Himalayas in South Asia. The task on the Chinese side is rather doable: embrace real-time transboundary data-sharing with Nepal and India, co-fund early-warning infrastructure, and make an action-oriented and measurable South-South climate finance commitment.