China has ruled out hosting the COP33 UN climate summit in 2028 after months of deliberation, according to reporting by the Guardian published on November 12. The decision leaves the field open for another Asian country to host the talks.

Source: The Guardian via Paparazzi

Under the rotation rules of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an Asian country is due to host the 2028 summit. COP33 is scheduled for November 6 to 17, 2028, and it carries a heavy agenda: the second global stocktake under the Paris Agreement, the mechanism that checks whether countries are on track for the 1.5C limit.

The move disappointed governments and climate experts who had hoped the world's biggest emitter - and its second-biggest economy - would take a leading role in international climate cooperation at a time when the United States under President Donald Trump has pulled back from it. According to the Guardian's reporting, Trump rejects climate science, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement and is also exiting its parent 1992 treaty, the UNFCCC; he remains in office until January 2029.

No public reason has been given for Beijing's decision. Experts who spoke to the Guardian pointed to the US electoral calendar: the next US presidential election falls on November 7, 2028, inside the scheduled COP33 dates - a timing they suggested may have influenced China's thinking. That explanation is expert speculation, not a stated Chinese reason.

6-17 Nov 2028scheduled COP33 dates
7 Nov 2028US presidential election date inside the summit window
4Asian countries named as mulling a bid: Uzbekistan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand

'I would be very much in favour of that idea,' former US vice-president Al Gore told the Guardian about a Chinese-hosted COP33. 'It's too bad.' Gareth Redmond-King, international lead at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, said China leads the world on clean energy investment, manufacturing and deployment, with its emissions starting to tick down: 'As a leadership story, China hosting Cop33 would be a big deal.'

China's own energy shift is well advanced, the Guardian reported: renewable generation capacity has overtaken coal, greenhouse gas emissions appear to have edged down this year, electric vehicles made up nearly two-thirds of the market last month, and clean energy industries drove more than 90 percent of the country's investment growth last year. Former US secretary of state John Kerry told the Guardian China was leaving the rest of the world behind on low-carbon technology.

Source: The Guardian via GazeWire

With China out, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand are among the countries now considering a bid, according to the reports. India also weighed a COP33 bid for months this year and declined, the Guardian said, while its coal use keeps climbing even as it beats its own renewable energy targets.

What happens next: no host is expected to be chosen at COP31, the summit currently running in Turkiye. The successful bidder will inherit the stocktake summit at a moment when, experts say, the 1.5C limit is now certain to be surpassed, shifting the focus to minimising the temperature overshoot and the extreme weather that comes with it.