China Environmental Law

On the day after the departure of Secretary of State Clinton from China, the answer is a resounding yes.

There is no doubt that the issue of climate change received much more attention during Clinton’s visit than in any previous US-China dialogues.  Her public appearances in Beijing included a tour of the Taiyanggong Thermal Power Plant “an efficient, low-emission power and heat generation project that uses US high-technology equipment - General Electric (GE) generators and advanced super-critical gas turbines.”  During the plant visit she and the Obama administration’s special envoy for climate change Todd Stern read from prepared statements.

The remarks were encouraging (and clever) because they make it clear that the US is trying to deliver the message that China needs to do more to check its carbon emissions.

Stern said:

Now, the United States recognizes its responsibility, as the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, to be a leader in this fight. And we also recognize that China has enormous challenges, in terms of development, development needs and development pressures.

And yet, this is true. There is no way to preserve a safe and livable planet unless China plays a very important role, along with the United States. This is not a matter of politics or morality or right or wrong. It is simply the unforgiving math of accumulated emissions.

Clinton in turn noted that:

Now, historically, as you know, the United States had the largest carbon footprint. But in the last year, China has surpassed us, and that is because of your growth. And I laugh with some of your officials. The United States, and certainly the Obama administration, we want China to grow. We want the Chinese people to have a very good standard of living. What we hope is that you won’t make the same mistakes we made, because I don’t think either China or the world can afford that. 

[When] We were industrializing and growing. We didn’t know any better. Neither did Europe. Now we are smart enough to figure out how to have the right kind of growth, sustainable growth, and clean energy-driven growth. This plant can be a model that can be adapted and replicated throughout our economies. And I think it is especially fitting that, as part of this new strategic and economic dialogue that we have agreed to in principle, clean energy and climate change will be at the center. Here we have seen, at this clean thermal plant, evidence of what we can do.

These remarks, I have to think, were designed to counter the standard argument of China and other non-Annex 1 countries–that ”developing” countries should be permitted to emit carbon with impunity (or at least no serious checks) because the developed world did so during its development phase.  The message Clinton and Stern delivered is we are beyond the point where assigning blame can possibly result in a meaningful and effective climate change agreement.  We in the West didn’t know the harm caused by carbon emissions when we were developing, you (China) do and that imposes greater obligations upon you.  I assume, for instance, that China would not argue that raping and pillaging Africa made European colonial powers rich, therefore, China gets to rape and pillage Africa until it gets rich as well. 

So far so good.  But where are we in terms of going forward? 

The Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) process will be expanded, or perhaps the “E” will simply be dropped.  Clinton reported on Saturday

In our discussions this morning with Foreign Minister Yang, we agreed in principle to a strategic and economic dialogue between our countries, which will be finalized when our two presidents meet together in London around the G-20 summit. And among the most important issues that we will discuss together is clean energy and climate change, and what the United States and China can do together.

Clinton fully expects the US State Department to be a key player in this expanded dialogue.

As noted above, there will be a meeting between Presidents Hu and Obama at the April 2 G20 summit in London.  This Hu/Obama meet up is being billed as the next big US-China engagement event.  The G20 summit will primarily focus on the global financial crisis and, of course, includes representatives and observers from many countries.  It does not seem like an ideal forum to address bilateral climate change issues between China and the US, but we have to take what we can get.

The ground work for the April meeting will be laid during a March 9 visit to the US by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, where the parties will prepare for the resumption and expansion of the SED process and draft mutual cooperation agreements for signing by Hu and Obama.

The cooperation stuff is great; the more cooperation the better.  There needs to be a second track, however, that is getting down to the brass tacks with China about the commitments the US and China will make at Copenhagen.  There were some hints that these discussions have begun or will begin soon.  At a online chat yesterday moderated by Tsinghua University Professor Qi Ye, Clinton said that “we hope to work together in the lead-up to Copenhagen at the end of this year, with a new climate treaty.”

Historically, as you know, the United States is the greatest emitter. But this year the Chinese surpassed us. And we can’t look at per capita basis, we have to look at absolute emissions, and how we reverse that. So this is going to be an expanded aspect of our dialogue.

The best moment during this online chat occurred when Professor Qi tried out the old “China’s already improving energy efficiency, what more do want” line on Clinton and she responded:

Well, that’s what we’re going to explore together. One of the challenges is the way that the emissions are calculated, because, as you point out, certainly there has been efficiency achievements here in China, as there has been in the United States. But we are still emitting too much.

. . .

And so, being more efficient will take us a long way toward what we need to achieve. But it is also clear that it is not only the developed countries, it is economies like China and India that have to become full partners.

Nice parry-riposte!

Time is of the essence.  Certainly the issue of climate change has been raised to a top agenda item on the US-China discussion list.  Perhaps it is seems ungrateful to express any concern at this point, but I just hope there is sustained engagement on the commitment issue.  If the commitment track negotiations are put on the same footing as the “cooperation” track, then they will proceed at the glacial SED pace.  We don’t have much time left.