China Environmental Law

When we are wrong here at CELB we’re cyber enough to admit it.  It was just Monday we were confidently predicting that the latest US-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue would be a snoozer on the climate change front (and probably all other fronts as well, but that’s beyond our scope).  Imagine then our shock when we woke this morning to a freshly signed Memorandum of Understanding to Enhance Cooperation on Climate Change, Energy and Environment (MOU).

Since we are in the business of reading things so you, busy reader, won’t have to, let’s dig right in and review the “Purpose” of the MOU.  OK we’ve got. . . . “strengthen and coordinate”. . . “respond vigorously”. . . “international cooperation” –bear with me, we seem to be getting the heart of it now– “pursue areas of cooperation where joint expertise, resources, research capacity and combined market size can accelerate progress towards mutual goals” which include:

1. Energy conservation and energy efficiency
2. Renewable energy
3. Cleaner uses of coal, and carbon capture and storage
4. Sustainable transportation, including electric vehicles
5. Modernization of the electrical grid
6. Joint research and development of clean energy technologies
7. Clean air
8. Clean water
9. Natural resource conservation, e.g. protection of wetlands and nature reserves
10. Combating climate change and promoting low-carbon economic growth

Hmmm, those seem familiar, where have I seen them before?  Of course, each one of these items (except climate change) has a direct analogue in the Ten Year Energy and Environment Cooperation Framework (TYF)  signed more than a year ago at the last US-China SED meeting in the US.

The MOU, doesn’t hide the ball; it gives a big nod to the TFY and promises that “[b]oth sides are committed to implementing all five existing action plans and to expanding the work of the TYF through new action plans.”  The more astute among you have noted that so far we have an MOU which paraphrases a year-old Framework and commits to an action plan to develop more action plans.  Now we’re making progress!

But wait, there’s more, this must be where the good stuff is, a section entitled “Climate Change Policy Dialogue and Cooperation.”  It begins “the parties have decided to establish a Climate Change Policy Dialogue and Cooperation as a platform for the United States and China to address global climate change and to identify and resolve areas of concern.”  Except for that “have decided” touch (seems much too spontaneous), this reads like typically bland and pointless international agreementese.  Why do you need to establish a “Dialogue” to have a dialogue?

The second paragraph of this section is the most significant (and depressing).  Here it is in full:

Consistent with equity and their common but differentiated responsibilities, and respective capabilities, the United States and China recognize they have a very important role in combating climate change.  The United States and China will work together to further promote the full, effective and sustained implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This language was obviously insisted upon by the Chinese side.  It’s chock full of code for “don’t expect us to agree to any limits on our carbon emissions.”  Ai ya!

Here’s what chief US climate negotiator Todd Stern stated in his prepared remarks for a June 3 event at the Center for American Progress:

In essence, China faces a choice. It can stick to its time-honored talking points and cite provisions of the Framework Convention, Kyoto Protocol, or Bali Roadmap to support the proposition that, as a developing country, it isn’t required to commit to significant measures to bring down its greenhouse gas emissions. This approach, indeed, is at least partly reflected in the Submission China sent in to the Secretariat of the Framework Convention in late April. Alternatively, China can take a new path, recognizing the need to make significant international commitments, against the backdrop of a robust, productive collaboration with the United States, among others.

It’s clear what choice China has made.  It’s sticking to “its time-honored talking points.”  I’m disappointed the US is playing along.  I guess you need a signing ceremony to close these Dialogues so you have to have something to sign, but in my opinion it would have been much better to sign nothing than an agreement with the paragraph quoted above in it.

Are there any redeeming features?  No, that’s it; the entire MOU is barely three pages long.

So we were wrong.  Something did happen.  The US endorsed China’s climate change negotiation strategy.  That’s news.

Tomorrow: a candid look inside the S&ED negotiating rooms.