Western diplomats are preparing for a showdown with China over its reluctance to commit to funding for poorer countries struggling to cope with climate change.

Governments are trying to source hundreds of billions of dollars of public money annually for the massive cash pot, meant to fund clean energy projects, build seawalls, plant heat-resistant crops and other efforts to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Wealthy countries are required to pay in, but China, under the terms of the 1992 U.N. climate treaty, is not. And Beijing isn’t budging, especially as some rich countries, most notably the U.S., have failed to deliver on their own funding pledges.

But Chinese taxpayers have grown wealthier in the three decades since that initial climate treaty. Meanwhile, China has become by far the largest single source of pollution and the third-largest climate change contributor of all time behind the U.S. and EU.

That has fueled Western pressure on China to chip in, including last year when a fund was set up to aid climate-stricken communities. In that case, Beijing declined to pony up.

The issue will be at the forefront of global climate negotiations this year as governments prepare to set a new funding goal at their next annual climate summit in November.

“The next COP is going to be largely focused on finance,” said John Kerry last month, in one of his final statements as U.S. climate envoy. “And the question will be: Will the donor base to that process grow? Will other countries that could be capable of providing more income and more donation — will they, in fact, step up and help to accelerate this transition?”

A group of European climate envoys will be in Beijing on Monday seeking potential answers to those questions. According to one European official, the envoys — who hail from Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and the EU — are angling for “much greater transparency” from the Chinese on their current financing to poorer countries, according to one European official.  

China has made voluntary contributions to the developing world since a 2015 meeting with U.S. leader Barack Obama, when President Xi Jinping pledged around $3 billion to a China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund. It’s not clear how much has been disbursed almost a decade later. One report found it may be as little as 10 percent.

The Europeans will also be looking to China to contribute through the multilateral funds that have been set up to distribute money to where it is most needed, the official said. 

U.S. and EU public statements are closely aligned regarding their desire to see more countries join the donors' list. That includes China, but also wealthy Gulf states.

In March, foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 members said “all countries” should contribute to the new climate finance goal “according to their financial capabilities, including emerging economies.”

Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, warned that focusing on the “so-called ‘donor base’ issue risks becoming a distraction.”

He said rich countries trying to lay blame or responsibility for climate change at China’s door “is perceived by many developing countries as intrusive, threatening, founded on poor legal basis, and representing the extension of geopolitical tensions into climate politics. A better framing needs to be found urgently, one that is based on a collective spirit of stepping up.”

Bernice Lee, a sustainability specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London, said China was unlikely to be shamed into contributing.

"Nowadays governments appear weak when their actions are seen to be a result of bending to foreign pressures, so the question is whether making demands very publicly for your domestic audience is the way to appeal to enlightened self interest in emerging economies."

Previously, wealthy governments promised to deliver $100 billion annually for the fund by 2020. But they missed that mark, likely only hitting it for the first time last year. U.S. contributions, meanwhile, have fallen far short as Congress blocks the Biden administration from sending climate aid overseas.

“For rich countries, cleaning house on climate finance is key,”  Lee said. “Deliver what you promised, or risk being open goals for even more cries of hypocrisy.”

Talks this month during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings are also seen as key to unlocking vastly bigger flows of public and private capital at the scale of trillions needed to wean the world off fossil fuels.

And in Beijing on Monday, the Europeans will also press their Chinese counterparts to join them in setting a new emissions reduction goal for 2035 that aligns with a global goal to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

Yet expectations are low regarding China’s proposed emissions cuts. 

“Beijing will hedge its bet until the elections in Europe and the U.S. and will be reluctant to take major moves,” said Li. “Two issues will dampen Beijing’s appetite to cooperate. First, it does not see corresponding climate moves from the West. If anything, climate politics in those countries have become harder in recent years. Second, de-globalization is accelerating.”

Zack Colman contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.