At COP30, China’s tea-infused fabric and India’s austerity

“Maybe it is just the magic of the panda,” Liantong Zhou told me in a paroxysm of laughter, seriousness, and bemusement.

Something strange was happening at the Chinese pavilion in the Hangar Convention and Fair Centre, the venue of the COP30 climate talks in Belem, Brazil. These pavilions at the annual United Nations conference are where countries set up cultural displays that tout their commitment to sustainable development and clean energy. They are also venues for panel discussions and seminars, and provide opportunities for bureaucrats, ministers, and businessmen to network. They are like temporary embassies where all the countries mark their presence over the fortnight of talks.

What marked the Chinese pavilion were the queues. On all days, Ms. Zhou told me, people had been lining up for an hour, sometimes two or three times a day, for ‘gifts’. These freebies included baubles, pens, caps, panda figurines, candles and soft toys — every day tourist ware — and were outwardly unexceptional. There were bigger panda soft toys and coffee mugs as well, but these were not free and had to be bought. And those were not exactly flying off the shelves.

I asked Ms. Zhou if she would endure a two-hour wait for similar stuff back home in Beijing. She gave me a diplomatic chuckle — she worked at the Environment Ministry and was only volunteering at the pavilion — and did not let her official mask slip. “Most of these are metal but some of them are made of tea,” she explained. “Bags?” I asked. “No, they are dissolvable, tea-infused fabric and recyclable. Once you are done with them, you can drink them.”

Other pavilions too had their draw: there was free Colombian coffee and Australian cakes, but no long lines. Here, in a microcosm, was geopolitics at play. China was the manufacturing powerhouse of the world and everyone at its pavilion was lining up for a piece of whatever the Chinese were giving away. This was no longer the country that, once in the popular imagination, was linked to plastic articles and toxic paints. ‘Metal,’ ‘recyclable,’ and ‘eminently desirable’ was the aesthetic the pavilion exuded.

At COP30, the U.S. was absent. It was where countries such as China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia — or the Like-Minded Developing Countries, as they are called — steered the conversation away from ending fossil fuel to concerns such as adaptation and the money needed to better fortify against a heating globe. From the European perspective, these countries, with their refusal to set hard deadlines on phasing out fossil fuels. are stalling progress, though it is also common knowledge that without China’s rare earths, solar cells, and batteries, an oil-and-coal-free planet is an opium dream.

In contrast to the Chinese pavilion, the Indian pavilion was austere. ‘India@COP30’ was displayed amid the red, orange, and green. India may be the third largest solar producer in the world, but a little over 70% of its actual electricity comes from coal. There were no queues because there was nothing to give away. It was nearly always empty except for visits by members of the Indian delegation.

“See these chairs?” Ms. Zhou continued, pointing to elegantly crafted wooden ones. “Tomorrow evening, when the pavilions close, we are going to give them all away. We shipped these in from China. We have committed them to a local NGO but anybody who wants them can take them away for free, if they line up.”

However, the next day, shrieks rent the pavilion. “Fire! Fire! Everyone clear out,” UN marshals bellowed, herding us all through the exits. A short circuit in the vicinity of the Africa pavilion had razed large portions. The venue was sealed. and shut for the day. I wondered if somebody had grabbed those chairs.