Despite their negligible contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions, the Caribbean’s small island states have borne the brunt of climate change-related destruction. Amid likely debate on future U.S. assistance to the Caribbean, and efforts to leverage other partnerships in support of urgent needs, Caribbean decision-makers will benefit from a clear understanding of the extent and nature of climate assistance from international partners—especially amid regional efforts to evaluate, coordinate, and leverage this assistance within the region’s existing policy frameworks and institutional landscape.
To that end, this report offers an assessment of the depth, breadth, and comparative nature of China’s direct climate cooperation with the Caribbean from 2013 to 2023. It aims to reconcile Chinese climate diplomacy and messaging in the Caribbean with accounts of China’s on the ground climate assistance in the region, while also examining the nature of Chinese climate policy and decision-making, and the main forms and features of Chinese climate assistance across much of the Caribbean.
Key findings:
- Based on our definition of Chinese directly climate assistance to the Caribbean, we find that China carried out at least 139 direct, climate-related projects in 13 Caribbean countries over the past decade, with an overwhelming focus on Cuba and Dominica.
- Climate diplomacy is an increasingly central feature of Chinese engagement with the Caribbean. The centrality of climate in China’s diplomatic messaging and outreach is ostensibly aimed at forging stronger diplomatic ties to Caribbean nations, where climate change and its implications are generally top of mind.
- China’s approach to climate assistance in the Caribbean is both similar to and distinct from that of other partner nations in several notable ways. In general, China’s assistance is more ad hoc, less focused on capacity building, supportive of the exportation of green energy and other equipment, and/or made up of mostly one-off donations, often in the wake of weather-related disasters.
- China upholds the exportation of low-cost green technology and equipment as a primary component of its direct climate assistance. Exports of renewable energy equipment to the Caribbean grew by 571 percent between 2020 ($49 million) and 2024 ($280 million). Lithium battery and new energy vehicles are among the highest growing exports, which from 2020 to 2024 grew by 626 percent and 1103 percent, respectively
- China has yet to articulate a clear and consistent climate agenda in the Caribbean. Some Chinese scholars have also noted a lack of coherent and cross-cutting strategy for climate policy implementation at home, even as China’s leadership sets clear and ambitious national climate objectives.
- It is unclear to what extent China’s measures and methods will have enduring effects on regional resilience. China’s lack of public mechanisms for measuring the social, environmental, and broad sustainability impact of Chinese donations and projects, the risk associated with its investments, as well as its heavy involvement in sectors with outsized environmental impact pose natural limits to China’s climate cooperation with the Caribbean
