China Environmental Law

The Climate Group launched its second homage to China’s low carbon efforts yesterday, “China’s Clean Revolution II : Opportunities for a low carbon future.”  It starts well-enough with an acknowledgement (page 5) that

In recent years the scientific evidence on climate change has become increasingly clear: it is now almost universally accepted that, in order to minimize the risk of irreversible damage to our planet and our livelihoods, we need to strive to keep the average global temperature increase below 2°C. It is also widely recognized that, to achieve this, we will need to peak global emissions before 2020 and then reduce them by 50-85% below 2000 levels, setting interim targets along the way.

It is clear, therefore, that the Climate Group understands that we need to limit future carbon emissions quickly and decisively, and that will require help from China.  That makes the absence of any reference to China’s predicted carbon emissions in the balance of their report all the more striking.  We are occasionally treated to a prediction of how much the wide-spread adoption of a particular technology or successful achievement of a certain policy will shave off “business as usual” levels of carbon emissions, but we are never told what the business as usual model shows or what China’s total carbon emissions will be with the technology employed or policy goal achieved.  This lacuna prevents any meaningful analysis of the impact of China’s “revolutionary” policies on the prospects of averting catastrophic climate change.  The amount of carbon emissions avoided is a relevant consideration in equitably allocating further carbon reduction commitments, but the climate only cares about how much carbon continues to be emitted. On this last point the report is silent.

It is unclear who this report is written for or what it hopes to achieve. Attempts to parse the cryptic statements of the group’s Greater China Director accompanying the launch of the report end in frustration.

“It’s a 70-30 situation.  We have 70% of the solutions today, but they are not all proven technologies and none are at the scale we need. 30% of the solutions will be found in the future.  Therefore we still need foreign investment to drive the revolution.”

Who’s the “we” in the second and last sentence?  One is tempted to say “humankind,” but then who are the “foreigners” providing investment in the last sentence.  If the “we” is China (a strange, but telling, choice of pronouns from an official with an international NGO), why does China need foreign investment to drive its “revolution,” and if it does, why would there be any problem in obtaining the investments if the returns were attractive?

In any event, if the report is designed to enhance the prospects of a climate change deal between the US and China, it is wasting its time.  With respect to climate change negotiations, the report concludes on page 8 that the key to a successful result in Copenhagen lies in “how the US interprets the progress in China.”  The US administration has made no secret of its views about China’s carbon emissions.

The chief US negotiator, Todd Stern, is already well aware of the actions undertaken by China that are chronicled in this report.  He has said that the “impression that China refuses to take action is both inaccurate and unfair.”  He has nevertheless concluded that

Yet China can and will need to do much more if we are to have any hope of containing climate change. . . .

China, and other developing countries, do not need to take the same actions that developed countries are taking, but they do need to take significant national actions that they commit to - internationally - that they quantify, and that are ambitious enough to be broadly consistent with the lessons of science.

Nothing in this report provides any new information about China’s actions or addresses in any fashion the prospects for commitments by China at Copenhagen.

Moving to the Congressional side of the equation, the report will not change the votes of any US Senators who will be called upon to ratify any US participation in a Copenhagen deal.  Senators already predisposed to vote against a global climate change deal won’t change their minds based on this report.  Their constituents are not interested enough in the issue to read a report like this.  Even if they did read it, they would more likely come away with the conclusion that China is an economic threat that shouldn’t get a “free-ride” in a climate change treaty.

Wavering Senators need a reason to vote for the deal.  They need to know what China is willing to commit to in an international context, and decide whether they think that is sufficient.  If China isn’t willing to translate domestic policy and goals into international commitments, they won’t support US participation in a Copenhagen treaty.

It’s great China is taking the actions described in The Climate Group’s report, but we are running out of time for more reports that give each of the 50 Chinaphile climate cognoscenti one more talking point for their “China’s doing a lot to tackle climate change” spiel which they can then repeat to the 49 other members of the club.

Is China willing to do more, and will it sign an international agreement committing to those actions?  These are the relevant questions now.  If The Climate Group had spent time evaluating these issues and working on a plan to get China to “yes,” it would have made a much greater contribution to this debate, and actually helped to break the climate deadlock.