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Article snippet: UNITED NATIONS — Barely a month ago, in a landmark speech to the Communist Party congress, President Xi Jinping of China promised that his country would take a “driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change.” But can China really be in the “driving seat” when it is burning so much coal that its carbon emissions are forecast to rise this year? It may depend on how the country manages a climate agenda laden with contradictions. For one thing, China, the world’s most populous country and the largest carbon polluter, is well on track to meet the commitments it made under the Paris climate accord — the global agreement designed to curb the worst effects of climate change — which the United States has said it is leaving. And China didn’t use a United Nations climate conference this week in Bonn, Germany, to promote coal, as the United States did, drawing jeers. The bar, it turns out, is pretty low. Energy specialists who follow China said the higher emissions projections, published this week by the Global Carbon Project, were to be expected. After steadily declining over the last three years, they say, China’s industrial emissions are projected to rise this year, reflecting how difficult it is for a country of China’s size and ambition to wean itself from coal. What they are keenly looking at is the country’s emissions trend over the next couple of years, and whether China steps up its climate ambitions in the face of American retreat. Experts ... Link to the full article to read more