Guest Host Iza Ding with Deborah Seligsohn: Inside COP30 in Belem, Brazil, and China's Climate Leadership

Hi listeners, welcome to the Sineca podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends that will help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics. and society. Join Seneca each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I am not Kaiser Guanghelium, I'm Isa Ding, this week's guest host.

I'm here with our guest today and my dear friend Dr. Deborah Salexon, who has been on this show many, many times and is one of Kaiser's favorite guests. Dr. Salexon is an associate professor of political science at Villanova University and was previously a science and environment counselor at the US Embassy in Beijing.

If you subscribe to my Substack at isading.substack.com or the Seneca Substack, you might have met her through my essay from this past summer called Schopenhauer's East Asian Renaissance. What you're about to hear is an episode that has three parts. The first two were recorded this November in Ballem, Brazil, where both Deb and I were attending COP30, which is the 30th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In this part, Deb shares with me her thoughts about this year's climate summit and China's role in it. You will also hear our discussion of a historical moment.

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