One month before he opened this year’s United Nations climate summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva helped open a new mega-factory at the site of a former Ford car manufacturing plant.The new plant, in Brazil’s Camacari, Bahia, is one of many being built around the world by China’s BYD, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric cars.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listBYD’s presence is also being felt at the ongoing COP30 climate summit in Brazil’s Belem, where it is a cosponsor alongside GWM, another Chinese electric carmaker.The sponsorship is just one of many ways that China’s investments in green technology are being felt at the UN’s top climate meeting, where the Chinese official delegation of 789 people is second only to Brazil’s 3,805.It is a stark contrast to the United States, whose federal government has not sent an official delegation. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom has accused US President Donald Trump of “handing the future to China” and leaving states like California to pick up the slack, in a speech at the summit.“ China is here. Only one country’s not here: United States of America,” Newsom said. Trump has called concerns over climate change a “hoax” and a “con job”.But the UN Climate Change Conference COP30 is not the only event where the diverging paths that China and the US are taking on addressing the climate crisis are being felt.Back in the US, and in neighbouring Canada, trade barriers aimed at punishing Chinese electric vehicles have made them far costlier than what the manufacturers want to sell them for. Advertise …
