Will China Save the Planet?

Barbara Finamore

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781509532667
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Now that Trump has turned the United States into a global climate outcast, will China take the lead in saving our planet from environmental catastrophe? Many signs point to yes. China, the world's largest carbon emitter, is leading a global clean energy revolution, phasing out coal consumption and leading the development of a global system of green finance. But as leading China environmental expert Barbara Finamore explains, it is anything but easy. The fundamental economic and political challenges that China faces in addressing its domestic environmental crisis threaten to derail its low-carbon energy transition. Yet there is reason for hope. China's leaders understand that transforming the world's second largest economy from one dependent on highly polluting heavy industry to one focused on clean energy, services and innovation is essential, not only to the future of the planet, but to China's own prosperity.

1
China’s Climate Diplomacy

I was in the room when it happened. Nearly three decades ago, as an environmental attorney living in Beijing, I witnessed China’s emergence on the international climate stage. It happened in June 1991, at a conference in a crowded ballroom at the elegant Kunlun Hotel. Ministers from 40 developing countries were listening to Premier Li Peng deliver a keynote speech. He explained that he had invited them to Beijing to develop a joint strategy for developing countries to use in negotiating a climate change treaty at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which was to be held the following year in Rio de Janeiro.

This was a watershed moment in China’s climate diplomacy – the first time the country positioned itself as the leading voice of the developing world on climate change. The outcome of that conference, the 1991 Beijing Ministerial Declaration on Environment and Development (Beijing Declaration), contained a series of basic principles, many of which were adopted in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Framework Convention).

Addressing climate change was not high on the list of China’s priorities at the time. Instead, as the economy was booming, the government was focused on building new power plants as quickly as possible. The goal was to drive industrial production and bring electricity to a rapidly expanding population that by 1990 already exceeded 1.1 billion. Coal, plentiful and cheap, was the energy source of choice, not just for power plants, but also for direct combustion by heavy industry and for heating and cooking in people’s homes.

Because of China’s heavy dependence on coal, its CO₂ emissions had already begun to rise sharply. In 1991, China became the world’s second largest CO₂ emitter after the United States, although its per capita emissions were less than one-tenth those of the United States. To the extent that government leaders were thinking about environmental issues, however, they were more concerned about the severe air and water pollution that was already plaguing the country.

Nonetheless, when the international community began to confront the reality of global climate change, China played an active role from the start, in large part so as to be seen as a responsible global player. Shortly after the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, China launched its own climate change research program involving 40 projects and 20 ministries.¹ It also formed an interagency National Coordinating Panel on Climate Change, which, among other things, developed a series of internal guidelines for China to use in the international climate negotiations.²

The guidelines were the result of internal jockeying among different government bureaucracies with competing priorities – a key feature of most Chinese policymaking. China’s fledgling State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the precursor to today’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), was concerned about the potential threat of climate change and was willing to consider actions to limit GHG emissions.³ SEPA also believed that China had a responsibility to participate in the treaty negotiations because it was a major contributor to the problem.⁴ The State Meteorological Administration and the State Science and Technology Commission (the precursor to the Ministry of Science and Technology), which were overseeing climate change research and developing response strategies, were sympathetic to this approach.⁵

However, the views of more powerful agencies prevailed. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), concerned about protecting China’s national sovereignty, opposed the idea of legally binding international climate commitments.⁶ The MFA also sought to ensure that China was treated with respect as an equal partner in international affairs – a reaction to a history of mistreatment by other countries – and to bolster China’s international image after a period of diplomatic isolation.⁷

The State Planning Commission (SPC), the precursor to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which manages the country’s economy, wanted to safeguard China’s national interest, which it defined as ensuring unconstrained economic development. The SPC therefore opposed any limits on energy consumption that might interfere with the country’s economic growth.⁸ The SPC also viewed the climate change negotiations as an opportunity to obtain financial assistance and advanced technology.⁹

The resulting climate negotiation guidelines strongly reflected China’s top foreign policy and economic development priorities: safeguarding China’s sovereignty, protecting its national interest, and enhancing its international image.¹⁰ Key principles included the following positions:

• Developed countries should take the lead in halting human-induced climate change considering their greater historic, current, and cumulative emissions.
• Developing countries have a right to develop and should not be obligated to undertake measures that might hinder development.
• International cooperation should be based on the principle of sovereign equality of all countries.
• Environmental considerations should not be used as an excuse for interference in the internal affairs of developing countries.
• Developed countries should provide new and additional funding and technology on favorable terms to developing countries to assist with their efforts to address climate change.¹¹

These fundamental principles, which were largely incorporated into the Beijing Declaration, have served as the foundation of China’s climate diplomacy through decades of negotiations. During the negotiations on the Framework Convention, for example, China argued successfully that developed and developing countries should be treated differently in accordance with their “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”¹² But along with the Group of 77, a coalition of developing nations, China strongly opposed any differentiation among developing countries based on their comparative stages of development or economic growth, especially the creation of a category of “more advanced developing countries.”¹³ The Chinese were concerned that this approach might single them out for greater obligations because of the country’s rapidly growing economy and burgeoning CO₂ emissions. They blocked the inclusion of any legally binding measures or timetables in the Framework Convention, even for developed countries, and also opposed efforts by the United States and others to include strong requirements for countries to measure and report their emissions, arguing that these would infringe upon national sovereignty.¹⁴

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 as a follow-up to the Framework Convention, set legally binding obligations on developed countries to reduce their GHG emissions. China and other developing countries, however, were not obligated to reduce emissions, only to establish national emission inventories, report on national programs, exchange information, and pursue sustainable development.

The unwillingness of China and other developing countries to accept binding emission reduction obligations in the Kyoto Protocol was a major source of friction between the United States and China for many years, especially as the latter’s CO₂ emissions continued to grow. But China’s annual, cumulative, and per capita CO₂ emissions at the time of the Kyoto Protocol were still much smaller than those of the United States. China, moreover, had real concerns about the country’s continued poverty and its relative lack of capacity to monitor and reduce emissions.

China and the Copenhagen Accord

In December 2009, world leaders gathered in Copenhagen in the hopes of negotiating a fair, ambitious and binding climate agreement. Much had changed in China since the days of the Beijing Declaration. Following its 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), China was experiencing one of the best decades in global economic history, quadrupling its gross domestic product (GDP) and nearly quintupling its exports.¹⁵ Energy use had doubled between 2000 and 2007 as the country raced to keep up with the pace of development, building on average one new coal-fired power plant a week to support its heavy industry and manufacturing facilities. In 2006, China overtook the United States as the world’s largest carbon emitter, and by 2009 it had become a net coal importer and the world’s largest energy consumer.

This headlong economic development came at an enormous price in terms of widespread environmental destruction, including accelerating outdoor and indoor air pollution, toxic water, and widespread soil c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: China –The New Climate Torchbearer?
• 1 China’s Climate Diplomacy
• 2 Dethroning Old King Coal
• 3 Catalyzing the Clean Energy Revolution
• 4 Jumpstarting the Electric Vehicle Industry
• 5 Greening China’s Financial System Epilogue: China in the Driving Seat
• Further Reading
• End User License Agreement