Working With China on Climate Is Not Optional

Instead of a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol, last year's climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen ended in finger-pointing among China, the United States, Europe, and others. Since then, the world has been waiting to see whether this year's climate negotiations can really deliver. As China hosts its first round of talks this week in the northern port city of Tianjin, it's time to recognize cooperation is not optional, but essential for our survival.

It was more than a year before the 2008 election that Senator Barack Obama made one of his first statements about China. Hillary Clinton was already on record, as were many Democrats and Republicans including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, taking a hard line on China. Since the end of the Cold War, candidates in general talked a big game, but as presidents were more pragmatic.

That's why Candidate Obama's line, like so many of his other lines, seemed different. Of China, he said, "They're neither or enemy nor our friend. They're competitors." As it turned out, aside from Senator Clinton's claims of "standing up to" China as first lady, China was far from the top of the 2008 agenda. Iraq, Afghanistan, the festering economic crisis—we had enough to worry about. Obama's middling statement stood.

Now, as the invective flows about Chinese economic policy, whether its currency manipulation or heavily-subsidized clean energy industries, the 2010 election is bringing China back to the forefront of the U.S. political debate (for the latest controversy, see no further than Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell).

Well, Obama in 2007 was right. China and the United States are not enemies. They're not friends. Economically and militarily, if you like, you can view them as competitors, though this is a profoundly opinionated statement that is taken for granted far too often.

What we have to remember during climate negotiations is that, when it comes to the global environment, China and the United States cannot be competitors. These two countries, perhaps more than any others, must cooperate. If U.S. negotiators have some power to corral European support (a big if), and if China has some leverage among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) states, then the pressure is even higher. But neither country, and neither bloc, will solve our global problems on its own.

This means that U.S. citizens and politicians need to send their negotiators into talks with tough-minded but realistic mandates to reach agreements that take real steps to combat climate change. It means that U.S. media and domestic politicians must understand that China is in a tough position with regard to economic growth, too. And it may require unprecedented feats of leadership in convincing the more-developed world that it will bear some of the cost of its historical greenhouse gas emissions.

Neither the U.S. and European negotiators, nor their Chinese counterparts, necessarily represent the "good" side. Thus neither side can assume the other will arrive ready to negotiate in good faith. Chinese negotiators, in efforts to reach agreements with the North Atlantic powers, will very likely need to make a binding promise to slow China's carbon output and accept a global auditing scheme—two controversial measures they have been resistant to so far. The negotiators on both sides will also need to come with real power to negotiate, not just a vague mandate from afar.

When both sides approach climate negotiations with no intention to compromise, we have no hope for success. Let bankers and generals compete, and leave the human inhabitants of all countries to avoid climate catastrophe.

Image credit: 路恩

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