The global financial crisis complicates matters further. Even though parts of both the developed and the developing world increasingly look to China for leadership, the country’s leaders view such a global role as beyond their current capabilities. Yet China has come a long way from the days of the Kyoto Protocol.
Like many developing countries, China was dragged along in that process. It did sign the Kyoto agreement, albeit as an “Annex I state,” meaning that it did not commit to defined limits on carbon emissions.
But China’s views have evolved. The biggest milestone came in December 2007, when it, along with other developing countries, signed the Bali Roadmap, agreeing to work together on a new global deal by the end of this year in Copenhagen. Today, China actively and constructively participates in the global talks, discussing, for example, what it has been doing to cut emissions per unit of GDP. (It has made an ambitious commitment in its 11th Five-Year Plan to a 20 percent reduction in energy intensity and a 10 percent increase in renewable energy by next year.) Reaction to these changes from the international community has been largely positive.
Indeed, last March, US climate envoy Todd Stern began to speak positively about China’s domestic efforts to address climate change. But this does not mean that agreement is in the offing.
According to the Kyoto Protocol, what China, as a “developing” country, and the US, as a “developed” country, are required to do is completely different. Unlike China, the US must commit to absolute limits on emissions. So China would like to see the US lead in making such a commitment — without using China as an excuse for inaction. As a developing country that has in its history emitted only one-fifth of the carbon dioxide emitted by the US, China insists that it has the moral right to resist calls to take the lead.
With just months remaining before the Copenhagen talks, China is expected to deliver its commitment to the Bali Action Plan. It will, of course, be a far lower commitment than that hoped for by the EU and the US. If the US is serious about reaching a constructive outcome in Copenhagen, it must set radical and practical targets, take responsibility for its history of carbon emissions and commit itself to support developing countries’ efforts by means of capacity building, technology transfer and finance. Only then will the developing world view the US as truly willing to assume its role as a global leader.
Wu Changhua is Greater China director of The Climate Group and is based in Beijing.
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