United on climate change: Obama's Chinese revolution

The Independent 8 Feb 09;

US President wants the world's two biggest polluters to form a partnership in the battle against global warming. Geoffrey Lean reports

Barack Obama is to invite China to join the United States in an effort by the world's two biggest polluters to stop global warming running out of control.

Hillary Clinton, his Secretary of State, is to raise the prospect of a "strong, constructive partnership" to combat climate change on a visit to Beijing next week, and the President is seriously considering a proposal from many of his most senior advisers to hold a summit with the Chinese leadership to launch the plan.

Last week, China's ambassador to the US, Zhou Wenzhong, made it clear that his government would welcome "co-operation on energy and climate change" with the US. Such unprecedented teamwork would transform the world's prospects for agreeing radical measures to combat global warming, and – senior Obama administration officials believe – lay the foundation of a new relationship between the two most powerful countries in the world.

For years, progress towards negotiating a new international climate change treaty has been bedevilled by the two superpowers, each refusing to commit itself to action unless the other goes first, and mutual suspicion has been growing. Between them, the US and China produce over 40 per cent of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide. About two years ago, China overtook the world's largest economy as the planet's biggest polluter. But Americans still emit more than four times as much of the gas per person as their Chinese counterparts.

Neither country has to reduce its emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. China, like other developing countries, is excused the reduction targets placed on industrialised nations. Former president George Bush rejected the treaty partly because of China's exemption.

The stand-off has dogged negotiations on a new, much tougher treaty as the US has been unwilling to agree to any targets until China commits itself to act on its emissions. China, for its part, has insisted the US act first as it has made a far greater contribution to the crisis, spewing out more than three times as much carbon dioxide over the past two centuries.

The arrival of President Obama – and increasing concern about climate change within the Chinese leadership – has provided an unprecedented opportunity to break the deadlock.

Both the President and Mrs Clinton have made it clear that combating climate change is among their highest priorities, and top Chinese officials are now indicating that their government is ready to work with them. Both countries have included "Green New Deal" measures, amounting to scores of billions of dollars, in their stimulus packages.

Mrs Clinton will visit Beijing for two days on 20 February, on her first overseas tour as Secretary of State, with the climate and financial crises at the top of her agenda.

Todd Stern, her special envoy for climate change, said last week; "Secretary Clinton is keenly aware that the United States, as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, and China, as the largest emitter going forward, need to develop a strong, constructive partnership to build the kind of clean energy economies that will allow us to put the brakes on global climate change. We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem."

The Chinese ambassador to the US sounded much the same note and appealed to American commercial self-interest in helping his country tackle global warming. "Co-operation between our two countries on energy and environmental issues will enable China to respond to energy and climate change issues more effectively, while at the same time offering enormous business opportunities and considerable return to American investors," he said.

He was speaking at the Brookings Institution launch of one of two important reports on the prospects of a US-China partnership on climate and clean energy – published on Thursday by experts with enormous influence in the new White House – which both called on Mr Obama to hold a summit with the Chinese leadership on the issue.

The Brookings report is written by two of its fellows, David Sandalow and Professor Kenneth Lieberthal, who both worked in the Clinton White House and have been tipped for senior posts in the new administration.

The second report, published by the Asia Society and the Pew Foundation, has an even more impressive pedigree. It was produced by a committee chaired by Steven Chu, the new US Energy Secretary, and John Thornton, tipped as the new ambassador to China, and carries a forward by Richard Holbrooke, appointed as the President's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has contributions from Mr Stern and Professor John Holdren, President Obama's science adviser.

Chance for a green alliance that could still save the world
Geoffrey Lean, The Independent 8 Feb 09;

Maybe we are on the brink of one of those rare moments that transform the world for the better. For the Obama administration's moves to forge a climate partnership with China offer much the best chance yet of averting the most serious crisis civilisation has faced.

Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing next week could prove far more important than President Nixon's "China initiative", which opened up the giant country to the world almost 40 years ago.

There is absolutely no hope of even beginning to get to grips with global warming without the United States and China, which between them account for nearly half of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet – even as science shows that time to avoid catastrophic climate change is running out – international negotiations on a new treaty have been paralysed by a deadly game of "after you, Claude", where both countries have refused to budge unless the other acts first.

If the partnership comes off, the relationship could be transformed, so that – as David Sandalow, a member of the Obama transition team who has just co-authored a new report, puts it – "instead of each country pointing to the other as a reason to do less, they spur each other on to do more". At the least, it would revolutionise the hitherto fragile prospects of international agreement at a vital meeting in Copenhagen in December, billed as the last chance to avoid disaster.

There are reasons to hope. Both countries are increasingly worried about the effects of global warming, whether droughts in California and northern China, or floods in southern China or New Orleans. More important, both have been doing a surprising amount while officially remaining obdurate.

Despite former President Bush's oil-soaked obstinacy, more than half of US states have acted to cut emissions, and more than 800 towns and cities have promised to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets. In a neat mirror image, the Chinese government has been admirably active – sparking a renewable energy boom and promising to cut the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of GDP by a fifth by 2010 – while finding it hard to get local governments to co-operate. With President Obama promising big emissions cuts, a deal seems possible.

Huge obstacles remain. Each country fears the other will use climate measures to obtain competitive advantage. And each is struggling with financial turmoil. So the best approach will be to emphasise the economic advantages in adopting a green new deal as the way to stimulate future growth.

Clean energy is central to this, and is rapidly expanding in both countries. So the place to start may be to focus on the opportunities to increase prosperity and reduce pollution through jointly developing things such as electric cars, boosting energy efficiency and renewable energy, and finding ways to clean up coal.