China Mulling Clinton's Climate Change Offer
Kent Garber

Climate Change: Global Carbon Footprint
(c) M. Ryder

"What do you think of Hillary Clinton's announcement?" a reporter yelled to He Yafei, China's vice foreign minister, as he attempted to walk off stage.

Looking away, Yafei said nothing.

Another Chinese official, asked the same question a few minutes later, said, "The press conference by the minister is over. I myself have another meeting to attend."

When China's answer does come it no doubt will go a long way toward determining the final outcome.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived for the final two days of the Climate Change Conference, the goal was to reach some sort of agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and she skillfully came with both an offer and a threat.

The United States, she said, is willing to help raise $100 billion a year over the next decade to assist poorer nations with adapting to climate change. But that pledge, she said, is tied to other things, particularly a commitment by all major emitters, including China, to be "transparent" about how much they're emitting. "This agreement has interlocking pieces," she said, "all of which must go together."

Officials from the United States haven't defined yet what they mean by transparency, but it's generally taken to mean that countries track their emissions and let an outside party verify their records. Clinton this morning went so far as to call its absence from a treaty a "deal breaker."

But how this regime would work isn't clear-cut. It could involve international inspectors or third-party auditors, something that China says violates its sovereignty. At least publicly, India has said the same.

The fight, experts on the ground say, is more than just a technical one. Rather, it involves weighty issues, among them respect, economic competitiveness, and even U.S. politics.

"One question is how a country measures its emissions,"says Peter Goldmark, climate director for the Environmental Defense Fund. "A touchier thing is what's the sanction if you're not being honest."

In 2008, for example, Greece was penalized because it didn't properly follow emissions reporting rules for the European Union's carbon market. The fine was that Greek companies were suspended from trading carbon permits for six months.

In Copenhagen, no one has questioned China's honesty outright. Generally, China has been applauded for pledging last month to voluntarily curb the growth of its emissions. But there's an undercurrent of doubt, both here and in the United States.

To get a climate bill through the U.S. Senate, Democrats know they're going to have to win over senators who are worried that a limit on carbon pollution will hurt manufacturing while China continues to pollute more freely. "They'll say, 'If we make a commitment, how can I assure my constituents that China will keep theirs?' " says Goldmark.

On top of that, any international pact would create a global market for buying and selling carbon permits--basically, pieces of paper saying that someone somewhere has reduced emissions by some amount--and businesses are worried that the market will fail if people have doubts about whether the permits mean anything.

That's why Sen. John Kerry, who was in Copenhagen yesterday, and other Democrats in recent days have been ramping up their rhetoric about the need for a "transparency" clause in a Copenhagen agreement. With that in hand, they think, they can convince reluctant senators that China is indeed doing its part, whereas a simple pledge isn't enough.

China, for its part, has rejected charges that it does not intend to fulfill its pledge. "People are saying we are afraid of responsibility. We are afraid of being monitored," Yafei said today. "No. It is a matter of principle."

In something of a sign that China is willing to talk, Yafei said China would release new details about how it is addressing its emissions. But that seems to be quite far away from what the United States would like to see.

Perhaps the bigger concern, which Copenhagen cannot answer, is whether China's plan really amounts to anything at all. According to one nongovernmental group's calculation, China's emissions under its new plan will continue to grow about the same rate for the next decade as they did for the past one.

 

 

 

China Mulling Clinton's Climate Change Offer | Kent Garber

 

(c) 2009 U.S. News & World Report