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China news tagged with: U.S. environment (29)

• Elizabeth Economy: The U.S. and China Have at it Again; But it’s Much Ado About Nothing

  

  For the Council on Foreign Relations blog, Elizabeth Economy writes that the recent uproar over tensions between the U.S. and China over Tibet, Taiwan, and a host of other issues, is overblown:

  There is nothing new here. We are merely witnessing the reality of the U.S.-China relationship, which is marked by almost no trust, a weak foundation of real cooperation, and a lack of shared values and commitment to true compromise. China and the United States have never achieved full agreement on how to approach climate change; we have regular disputes over Taiwan arms sales and the Dalai Lama; and we have never had a truly common approach to Iran. The only “new” issue on the table is the Chinese cyberhacking of Google, a number of major American companies and think tanks, and Chinese dissidents…and even that is probably not all that new. We just didn’t know about it.

  » Read more
  • February 3, 2010 3:37 PM

• China, U.S. Praise Nonbinding Climate Agreement

  

  AP reports:

  China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, on Sunday lauded the outcome of the U.N. climate conference, which produced a nonbinding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts — but does not require it.

  Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the climate talks that brought together more than 110 world leaders in Copenhagen delivered “significant and positive” results.

  The Obama administration on Sunday also defended the agreement as a “great step forward” — despite widespread disappointment among environmentalists, who lament that the pact does not include mandatory targets that would draw sanctions.

  Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Brown has blamed both the U.S. and China for the failure to deliver a more substantive agreement, the Telegraph reports:

  Mr Brown invested a large amount of time in the process, but yesterday was forced to admit that the results were far from what had been hoped for after years of lobbying. He said the European Union was prepared to go to cut emissions by 30 per cent, but other needed to follow.

  He said: “What we need is not just one part of the world going to higher ranges of ambitions, we need the other parts of the world as well,” Mr Brown said.

  “If America and China were able to show that they were doing more, and I believe that they could, then all countries – Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea – all these countries that have got ranges would be prepared to go to their highest level of ambition.”

  Read also: “How China Stiffed the World in Copenhagen” from Foreign Policy. China has rejected accusations by British Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband that it hijacked climate negotiations.

  » Read more
  • December 21, 2009 3:12 PM

• Obama Presses China on Rules for Monitoring Emissions Cuts (Updated)

  

  The New York Times reports on President Obama’s speech at the Copenhagen climate change conference and efforts to reach consensus before the meetings end:

  His remarks appeared to be a pointed reference to China’s resistance on the issue of monitoring, which has proved a stubborn obstacle at the talks and a source of tension between China and the United States, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

  After delivering the speech to a plenary session of 119 world leaders, Mr. Obama met privately with China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, in an hourlong session that a White House official described as “constructive.”

  However, in a day of high brinkmanship and seesawing expectations, Mr. Wen did not attend two smaller, impromptu meetings that Mr. Obama and United States officials conducted with the leaders of other world powers, an apparent snub that infuriated administration officials and their European counterparts and added more uncertainty to the proceedings. At 7 p.m. Copenhagen time, Mr. Obama and Mr. Wen met again, joined by Prime Minister Mammoghan Singh of India and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil.

  Walking into the meeting room, Mr. Obama called out, “Mr. Premier, are you ready to see me? Are you ready?”

  Watch Obama’s speech, via BBC. China Dialogue has translated Premier Wen Jiabao’s comments at Copenhagen. Read also “China’s delaying tactics threaten climate deal” from the Independent and “Has a U.S-China agreement on transparency been reached?” from Green Leap Forward.

  Also, watch Thomas Friedman on the CBS Early Show saying that the negotiations in Copenhagen are really just a power struggle between China and the U.S.:
  
  Watch CBS News Videos Online

  Update: A climate deal has been reached, though it is limited in its scope. From Beth Daley for the Boston Globe:

  The United States, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa last night reached what President Obama called a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough’’ to control climate change, although the agreement will not be legally binding and falls short of even the most timid expectations of what would come out of the much-anticipated talks here.

  The last-minute deal, reached on the final day of the two-week climate summit, will set a target of keeping average worldwide temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels – or roughly 2 degrees above today’s average. At current emissions levels, temperatures are expected by leading climate scientists to rise between 3 and 7 degrees by the end of the century. Obama acknowledged that the deal fell far short of most people’s expectations and would not be enough to keep within the temperature target and avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

  “This is not a perfect agreement,’’ he said. “No country would get everything that it wants.’’

  The agreement requires countries to list voluntary emissions-reduction targets that are not legally binding, and it establishes no deadline for completing a treaty that would require countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Most had expected that the talks would produce consensus to reach a treaty next year.

  Emma Graham-Harrison takes a closer look at China in her “snap analysis” for Reuters, via Forbes:

  China flexed its growing political muscle to seal a compromise climate deal that protected its national sovereignty, but did little for global warming or Beijing’s international image.

  An eagerly-awaited climate summit in Copenhagen nearly collapsed on Friday, with most of the major developed-world players blaming China for its intransigence on the question of how its emissions-cutting commitments would be monitored.

  Beijing’s refusal to budge on rich nation demands for greater transparency and checks — in a country not famous for its reliable statistics — was cited by negotiator after negotiator as a key block to reaching a deal.

  » Read more
  • December 18, 2009 11:55 AM

• Climate: Does the World Need a China-US Deal?

  

  With the Copenhagen climate change conference wrapping up in a couple of days, there may yet be progress on a deal between the U.S. and China, which has been one of the major stumbling blocks so far. From Reuters:

  The Dec 7-18 summit is officially due to wrap up a new deal to tackle global warming on Friday, but rifts between rich and poor nations over everything from funding to which draft deal should be on the table, have made for agonizingly slow progress.

  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to break the deadlock on Thursday with a pledge to help mobilize the $100 billion a year by 2020 to assist poor nations shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world.

  China’s He, who had previously said finance was China’s top concern at the talks, said the move was positive.

  “I think the financial issue is very important. Whatever initiative these countries will announce is a good step,” He told Reuters when asked about the U.S. announcement.

  Meanwhile, Opinio Juris, a site focusing on various perspectives on international law, asks, “Does the World Need a China-US Deal?“:

  A China-US deal makes sense for both sides. China has already embarked on an ambitious energy efficiency drive, which forms the basis for its recent undertaking to reduce emissions intensity by 45%. China has economic, political and environmental reasons for its actions. China has much to gain from nationwide energy efficiency, and for some technologies (e.g. renewable energy and power stations) a large domestic market will also provide a springboard for exporting this technology. A deal with the US could bring in welcome infusion of additional capital and know how as well as markets for many Chinese technologies. Politically, China can benefit from showing leadership on a major global issue, and from maintaining access to markets in countries with emissions controls; and the Chinese government is alert to adverse impacts of climate change in China and the accompanying threat of social unrest and political destabilization. Environmentalism too has rising affirmative salience in Chinese public and governmental thinking.

  From the US perspective, bringing China into an international limitations agreement would reduce leakage of investment and jobs as well as securing climate benefits and meeting the domestic US political demand for action by China as a condition for the US to undertake strong regulatory limitations on greenhouse gas emissions.

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  • December 17, 2009 1:59 PM

• China and U.S. Hit Strident Impasse at Climate Talks

  

  The New York Times reports on the impasse between the U.S. and China over monitoring and compliance of any any treaty:

  Chinese negotiators have said little during formal negotiation sessions here, where they have been working in partnership with the developing countries. They have made clear that they do not expect money from the industrial powers to help make the shift to a more energy-efficient economy.

  But they will not accept any outside monitors to ensure that they are indeed making the changes that they have promised to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants emitted per unit of economic output.

  “I think there’s no doubt that China, when it says 40 to 45 percent reduction in energy intensity, is serious about that,” said Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change. “The more challenging hurdle is finding a formula for ensuring the outside world that an avoided ton of gas is in fact a ton.”

  He Yafei, the Chinese vice foreign minister, said China’s laws would guarantee compliance.

  “This is a matter of principle,” even if it scuttles the talks, he said in an interview with The Financial Times.

  
  On Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter looks at a similar article in the Financial Times and says the New York Times is taking the Chinese negotiator’s quote out of context:

  This last quote – paired with the preceding “China’s laws would guarantee compliance” – made me perk up, in large part because China and its negotiators don’t like to talk about compliance. And, among the many reasons that they don’t like to talk about compliance, is that China isn’t able to enforce its environmental laws on a uniform, national basis (China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection has 2% of the staff enjoyed by the US EPA), and thus its industries rarely if ever comply.

  » Read more
  • December 14, 2009 9:46 PM

• Global Warming Talks Spark Friction between US and China

  

  The war of words between Chinese and U.S. negotiators at the Copenhagen climate change conference continues. From the Christian Science Monitor:

  Perhaps the most visible disagreement so far is the one between the US, the world’s current economic superpower and China, its likely successor. The US has proposed cutting its emissions to around 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, with additional cuts to follow at regular intervals through 2050. China’s top negotiator, Su Wei, dismissed the offer, saying “the figures can not be regarded as remarkable or notable.”

  In defending the Obama administration’s numbers on Wednesday, the president’s special envoy on climate, Todd Stern, acknowledged China’s strides toward greener economic development and accepted that the country is in a different stage of development then the US.

  But Bejing’s offer to reduce its energy intensity by between 40 to 45 percent by 2020 doesn’t square with what’s needed, he explained.

  “By 2020, [China's] emissions will be 60 percent larger that the United States; by 2030 they’re going to be 80 percent larger than the United States,” he said. “Emissions are emissions. You’ve just got to do the math. This isn’t just a matter of politics, or morality, or anything else. It’s just math. You cannot get the kind of reductions that we need globally if China’s not a major player. That’s the reality.”

  See also “U.S. Climate Negotiator ‘Lacks Common Sense,’ Chinese Diplomat Says” from the New York Times and “US rules out funds for China effort” from the Financial Times. Green Leap Forward is also continuing their daily updates.

  For more general discussions of the issues being confronted at the conference, see: “U.N. Draft Emissions Proposal a Nonstarter for U.S. Climate Negotiators” from the New York Times and “Do Rich Nations Owe Poor Ones a Climate Debt?.”

  » Read more
  • December 11, 2009 2:44 PM

• China, U.S. Trade Barbs at Climate Talks

  

  The Copenhagen climate change conference is being hampered by a war of words between China and the U.S., AP reports:

  U.S. chief negotiator Todd Stern urged China to “stand behind” its promise to slow the growth of the country’s carbon output and make the declaration part of an international climate change agreement.

  China rejected that demand, and renewed its criticism of the U.S. for failing to meet its 17-year-old commitment to provide financial aid to developing countries and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases warming the Earth.

  “What they should do is some deep soul-searching,” said Yu Qingtai, China’s chief climate negotiator.

  The remarks during separate news conferences reflected the heavy lifting that remains in the 10 days before 110 heads of state and government conclude the summit, which aims to create a political framework for a treaty next year to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

  See also “U.S. Swings Back at China in Copenhagen” from Fox News and “No ‘Pass’ for Developing Countries in Next Climate Treaty, Says U.S. Envoy” from the New York Times.

  » Read more
  • December 9, 2009 9:30 PM

• Perry Link: Copenhagen: China’s Oppressive Climate

  

  On the New York Review of Books blog, Perry Link writes about the intersection of global warming, environmental activism and human rights in China:

  Nearly all Chinese protests of environmental abuse have concerned air and water pollution, not climate change. When people choke on the air that they breathe and see their children die of lead poisoning, the threat of climate change seems remote by comparison. But Zhang Zuhua and Jiang Qisheng are no doubt correct to say that Chinese people have no more appetite for “the prospect of a cooked planet” than anyone else has. The problem is that the issue has not been properly presented to them. China’s state-controlled media and education curricula avoid the topic. From the rulers’ point of view, one more cause for protest is one more threat to their grip on power.

  The Obama administration has said several times that it wants China as a reliable “partner” on global issues. Apparently seeking to turn this wish into a reality, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Beijing last February seeking Chinese government cooperation on climate change, terrorism, and the economic crisis, while declaring that issues like human rights should not “interfere.” Here she was in line with the long-standing practice of “China experts” in and around US governing circles, who tend to downplay discussion of China’s dismal human rights record until it becomes little more than short lists of political prisoners presented to China’s leaders behind closed doors.

  China’s political prisoners do, of course, need help. But to isolate the human rights issue in this way is a radical misconception of what is at stake. US officials would do better to view the issue as pervading almost every other matter of concern between the US and China, including urgent problems like global warming.

  » Read more
  • December 7, 2009 5:08 PM

• U.S., China List Joint Clean Energy Plans

  

  During President Obama’s visit to China, the two countries have agreed on ways to increase cooperation in developing green technology. From UPI:

  First, a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center will be established, the White House said in a statement. The $150 million center, equally funded by the two countries for five years, will facilitate joint research and development of clean energy technologies by teams of scientists and engineers from the United States and China and act as a clearinghouse to aid researchers in each country.

  The two presidents also announced the beginning of the U.S.-China Electric Vehicles Initiative, which includes joint standards development, demonstration projects in more than a dozen cities, technical road-mapping and public education projects.

  Also included in the package is a new U.S.-China Energy Efficiency Action Plan. Under the program, the two countries will work together to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, industrial facilities and appliances.

  See explanations of the new initiatives as released by the White House.

  Coinciding with the bilateral summit, two joint projects have been announced: A wind turbine factory to be jointly built in Texas by American and Chinese companies, and a deal by GE to implement its coal gasification technology to replace coal-powered processes in power plants in China.

  » Read more
  • November 17, 2009 12:36 PM

• Li Xiaorong: Speaking of Human Rights

  

  Li Xiaorong, a research scholar at the Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, who does consultant work for Chinese NGOs, published in the Baltimore Sun the speech she wishes President Obama would give while in Beijing:

  I am proud to say that my administration is actively pursuing its agenda to promote clean energy and reduce carbon emissions. President Hu, I urge you to build on what your government has already done to combat pollution and promote alternative energy.

  I also want to express my admiration for the independent environmental activists who have sprung up across China. In my country, activists have played a vital role in mobilizing public opinion, blowing the whistle on polluters and developing energy-saving measures. I salute them as part of the solution to environmental problems.

  For this reason, I am concerned that they still cannot express their views freely. One of this country’s most vocal environmentalists is behind bars. Wu Lihong, a farmer, should be released from prison where he is serving a three-year sentence in retaliation for exposing the illegal dumping of industrial waste in the famous Tai Lake. Another hero, Sun Xiaodi, is currently serving two years in a labor camp. He fought for recognition of the health problems caused by nuclear contamination among workers in a plant in Gansu Province.

  » Read more
  • November 17, 2009 11:28 AM

• US Envoy Rules Out Climate Deal with Beijing

  

  The U.S. and China will not reach an agreement on carbon emission targets in time for President Obama’s visit to the country next month, Financial Times reports:

  Todd Stern said the two governments would seek “a common understanding” on climate change issues ahead of the crucial meeting in Copenhagen in December and would deepen co-operation on clean energy, but would not reach an accord on carbon emissions targets.

  The low expectations for the climate change talks might please some European nations, which feared that China and the US would seek to impose a bilateral accord on other countries at Copenhagen. But the fact that no landmark deal will be agreed underlines the weak position of the US in climate change discussions until cap-and-trade legislation is passed by Congress.

  “I do not think that we are expecting a broad agreement, per se,” Mr Stern said on Wednesday at a briefing in Shanghai. “It’s not an issue of trying to cut some separate deal, but there absolutely is an issue of trying to get us and China as aligned as possible so that we have a chance to get an agreement in Copenhagen.

  ”

  » Read more
  • October 28, 2009 8:26 PM

• China Announces Pledge to Curb Carbon Emissions

  

  At the UN General Assembly gathering today to tackle global warming, President Hu Jintao announced steps China will take to reduce emissions, without naming a specific numerical goal. From the Guardian:

  The proposals, delivered by President Hu Jintao, on the first morning of this week’s UN general assembly meeting, included the promise of a “notable” decrease in the carbon intensity of China’s economy – the amount of emissions for each unit of economic output – by 2020.

  “At stake in the fight against climate change are the common interests of the entire world,” Hu said. “Out of a sense of responsibility to its own people and people across the world, China fully appreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change.”

  Hu’s speech fell short of expectations that he would name the target for China’s carbon intensity, and observers suggested China was keeping its cards close to its chest until the climate change summit negotiations in Copenhagen in December. But the speech, coming soon after a change of rhetoric by India’s government, slightly raised hopes that a meaningful agreement can still be secured in Copenhagen.

  Also in the Guardian, Jonathan Watts writes that Hu’s speech is “more terminology than substance.” See also a report from the New York Times. The Times has posted the full text of Hu’s speech.

  Also see “Myth vs. Reality on International Climate Change Negotiations” from the Center for American Progress and “Has China taken the lead on climate change?” from the Foreign Policy blog.

  The Financial Times also ran an editorial called “World will benefit from greener Hu.”

  » Read more
  • September 22, 2009 1:58 PM

• The U.S. Climate Change Bill: International Trade Implications & China

  

  On China Law and Policy, Elizabeth Lynch writes a lengthy post, including a podcast interview with Jake Caldwell, director of Policy for Agriculture, Trade & Energy at the Center for American Progress, to help explain implications of the U.S. Climate Change Bill on trade with China:

  This past June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (the “Climate Change Bill”). Far-reaching in its impact on the U.S. economy and particularly detrimental to certain energy-insensitive sectors, debate in the Senate will become increasingly cantankerous as special interests and certain states lobby for protection.

  And while the Bill, through a series of complicated cap-and trade equations and a plethora of subsidies to renewable energy, has the potential to completely alter the domestic market, debate thus far has been about its global impact. With fear that countries like China will not pass legislation to cap their domestic industries’ carbon output, the House added two provisions to protect U.S. industries from companies in countries that are not similarly restrained. Out of a 1,400 page bill, these two provisions have become the center of the debate, some calling these provisions much needed protection and others calling them tariffs.

  But conspicuously absent from these discussions is an analysis of what is really going on here. How exactly do these provisions work? Will they have the intended effect of maintaining the competitiveness of U.S. industries or are they attempts by certain industries to protect their profits? Will these provisions bring countries like China to the table in Copenhagen or will they ultimately produce a tariff war? Can they withstand a challenge under global trade rules?

  On a related topic, read an interview on China Dialogue with Li Lailai, deputy director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, about China’s position on climate change policy and solutions:

  QD: The post-Kyoto climate-change talks have continued on that basis. What suggestions do you have for China’s stance at these talks?

  LL: First, we need to clarify the different responsibilities of developed and developing nations.

  Let’s start with technology transfer: undoubtedly, less populated and more technologically advanced developed nations should be aware that they have written the rules of the game, and thus have a natural advantage. But climate change cannot be tackled unless everybody has the necessary technologies – hence technology transfer is needed. The largest obstacle here is that developed governments maintain that these technologies belong to private companies, and that governments cannot interfere in the market-led exchange of technology. But this is merely an excuse and avoids responsibility. Governments need to take action on climate change, removing intellectual property and other trade barriers, so that developing nations can get the technology to combat climate change – or there will be no joint action to speak of.

  » Read more
  • September 8, 2009 12:02 PM

• Report: US, China Must Improve Climate Cooperation

  

  From AP:

  The United States and China should use high-level meetings next week to work toward improved cooperation in curbing greenhouse gases, according to a new Senate report.

  The Foreign Relations Committee report released Thursday says new efforts to address emissions by the United States and China, the world’s largest emitters of climate-altering pollution, could be “the key to a global solution” to climate change.

  The report urges the countries to make climate change a priority. It also warns that winning a climate change policy agreement with fixed commitments from China will “prove extraordinarily difficult.”

  “The stakes are high,” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the committee, said in the report. “We must jointly tackle one of the most important and complex global issues: the threat of catastrophic climate change.”

  » Read more
  • July 23, 2009 7:01 AM

• American and China Pledge to Study Energy-Efficient Building Practices

  

  The New York Times reports on the recently-concluded visit to China by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke:

  The United States energy secretary, Steven Chu, concluded his first official visit to Beijing on Thursday with a memorandum of understanding with Chinese officials for joint studies on ways to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, the latest in a series of incremental steps to address China’s contribution to climate change.

  Mr. Chu and the United States commerce secretary, Gary Locke, had said Wednesday that the main purpose of their trip was to start building a relationship with their Chinese counterparts, not to forge broad agreements on climate issues or energy policy.

  Mr. Chu and Mr. Locke both said on Thursday afternoon that after speaking with senior Chinese officials, they were confident China shared the desire of the United States to address global warming. “We both recognize it’s a long journey,” Mr. Chu said.

  » Read more
  • July 16, 2009 8:29 AM

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