In the case of China, it's pushed them to make headway in the process of building a manufacturing infrastructure that is more insulated from global energy price swings. IIRC they can also power much of it more cheaply (e.g. solar has no fuel cost), which provides them with a cost advantage.

As we have repeatedly seen, there is also leverage to be had in not having one's country internally levered to global oil prices.

So it provides leverage, but not to directly penalize.

And China does produce and installs tons of solar panels, windparks and batteries, but they also build as much coal plants as they can. African leaders all in all seems loud to use climate change as a means to get more developement funds/compensation and that's it. The arab world gets angry if the oil output gets reduced. Then there is south america, where from what I know of personal interactions, climate change is largley a unknown term, unless it is used to somehow attack the "west".

But yes, what to expect if the richtest country does not lead by example.

Now we have evidence which seems to suggest we have reached our first such tipping point[1], low latitude coral reef die-off. So even if we stop emitting CO2 into the atmosphere tomorrow, these corals are still going to die (most likely) and they are not coming back for at least a few centuries, meaning the CO2 which they store will be released into the atmosphere causing even further warming.

This is only the first of a more then a dozen tipping points, and since we have passed this one we are also likely to pass a couple more (Greenland Icesheet and North Atlantic conveyor), however that is not certain. And it is possible that if we take drastic action (which we 10000% should) we can (possibly) prevent other tipping points and even possibly use existing technology (like planting trees, reclaiming swamps, etc) to offset the carbon released by the dying corals.

So in short, while technically true, reducing emission to zero isn’t enough any more. We are not at a point (yet; possibly) where we can’t stop the warming with existing technology. But we must absolutely absolutely absolutely, and dear I say, absolute-effing-lutely reduce our emissions to zero, not net zero, but absolute zero, and we mast do it as fast as we can, no matter how much it costs.

1: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251029002920.h...