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China backpedals on climate promises as economy slows

When China's President Xi Jinping issued his traditional Lunar New Year wishes from the country's coal heartland in January, the subtext was clear: Beijing is not ready to kick its coal addiction, despite promises to slash emissions.

The ink had barely dried on the hard-fought deal struck at last year's United Nations climate conference in Glasgow when Beijing's backslide on pledges began.

The country's central economic planner has watered down a roadmap to slash emissions, greenlighted giant coal-fired power plants, and told mines to produce "as much coal as possible" after power shortages paralysed swathes of the economy last year.

Environmentalists are concerned this would mean China would continue to pollute beyond the 2030 deadline by which it has promised to have reached peak emissions.

Xi's trip to mining towns in Shanxi –- China's biggest coal producing province—saw him making crispy noodle snacks with families "recently lifted out of poverty".

"We are not pursuing carbon neutrality because others are forcing us, it's something we must do. But it can't be rushed," he said later, while inspecting a thermal power plant.

"We can't delay action, but we must find the right rhythm."

Days earlier, Xi told Communist Party officials in Beijing that low-carbon goals should not come at the expense of "normal life"—a major change in rhetoric from his 2020 announcement at a UN assembly that China would be carbon neutral by 2060.