The US State Department’s climate envoy Todd Stern told reporters on Wednesday that China must take “significant, robust action that’s quantifiable, that it commits to that” as part of a new international climate change agreement. This means “real obligations,” but not economy-wide targets similar to developed countries. It is unclear whether Stern meant that the US does not expect China to agree to any “economy wide-targets” or simply not the same targets as those which developed countries will commit to.
Jonathan Pershing, the deputy climate envoy, in a subsequent conversation with the Dow Jones Newswires said that
the U.S. wouldn’t necessarily be seeking specific greenhouse gas reduction targets from China in the near-term. Rather, the Administration wants a commitment to accelerate existing energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, and to deploying advanced energy technologies that trend toward longer-term emission cutting goals.
“I would like to see them on a pathways towards reductions…a national trajectory that gets them to some share of the global obligation,” Pershing said on the sidelines of a climate conference.
Perhaps I am filtering these statements through my own biases, but it sounds like the US is pushing for China to undertake something similar to the McKinsey “Green Revolution” program (see here), which would result in a significant slowing of the growth of China’s emissions in the near-term, and set the stage for longer term emission cutting goals. 1 Good!
If anyone is still in favor of pushing the China as competitor argument, note that you will be tossing out red meat for Democratic Senator Begich and his cohorts. He said
“Here’s the dilemma for a legislator who’s attempting to be fair to…America’s place in the world economy: It is assumed that we have greater financial resources to deal with this problem, when China is a greater emitter and they’re sitting on a $2 trillion surplus while our economy has gone down the tubes,” Begich complained to Stern at the hearing. . . . ”There has to be full participation by the Chinese,” Begich told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of the committee hearing.
Hold on to your seats folks, we’ve got a wild year ahead of us.
- Senator Kerry was quoted as saying developing countries need to commit to begin reducing emissions within the next 10-15 years. ↩