"United Nations still considers China, now the world’s second-largest economy and biggest annual polluter, a developing country"
"In 1992, the United Nations classified China as a developing country, as hundreds of millions of its citizens lived in poverty.
A lot has changed since then: China is now the world’s second-largest economy and the biggest annual emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Average Chinese today are 34 times richer and nearly four times more polluting. But the classification has stayed the same for the past three decades, frustrating diplomats from developed nations who say it has allowed Beijing to avoid paying its fair share to help poor countries cope with the ravages of climate change.
The debate over what China owes to countries that are least responsible for global warming — but most harmed by its effects — has dramatically intensified in the wake of the recent U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt. At the end of the two-week summit, known as COP27, negotiators from nearly 200 nations agreed to establish a fund to compensate vulnerable countries for the costs of addressing rising seas, stronger storms and other effects of a warming world."
Maxine Joselow, Michael Birnbaum, and Lily Kuo report for the Washington Post November 23, 2022.
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