There is a second obstruction as well: the US Congress refuses to face up realistically to the climate challenge, because China, as a developing country, is not obliged to accept compulsory carbon limits. Then, because the US refuses to take responsibility for its cumulative and per capita greenhouse-gas emissions — which are, respectively, roughly four and three times greater than China’s — the Chinese leadership refuses to make concessions. A standoff ensues, which is where we are now.
China recently demanded that the US reduce its emissions by 40 percent from its 1990 baseline levels and subsidize emission reduction efforts in China and other developing countries to the tune of 0.05 percent to 1 percent of the US’ GDP. But the recently House-passed Waxman-Markey bill proposes that the US only cut emissions by 3.6 percent of 1990 baseline levels.
So it is still far from clear what will actually work to bring about an understanding between the US and China that produces real results. Moreover, with India poking Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the eye over her climate-change entreaties, the world could easily see an even more unified and unyielding bloc emerge among developing countries.
The next moment to watch is Obama’s trip to China in November. Here, if all the expressions of good feeling cannot be made concrete, an incomparable opportunity to recast Sino-US relations around the issue of climate change will have been lost.
Orville Schell is director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society.
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