Learn > Will China Ever Rethink Climate Change?

Regardless of where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are produced, their impact will be felt, to varying degrees, the world over. According to the UN-commissioned 2007 Stern Report, “the impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed—the poorest countries and people will suffer earliest and most.” The report also notes that the effects of climate change will pose severe obstacles to poverty reduction.  Who has the most to lose, and who foots the bill for reducing emissions, are subject to contentious debate. China, for its part, may benefit from walking a greener line between economic development and the environment.   

Up til now, developed countries have been the largest contributors to global warming. In 2005, for instance, the average Chinese consumed 10 to 15 percent of the energy that a given American did.  China’s double-digit economic growth is, however, fueling a steep rise in emissions. In fact, developing countries as a whole are catching up in the emissions race: according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), they are currently contributing more than two-thirds of CO² emissions growth worldwide.  Furthermore, in its World Energy Outlook 2007 report, the IEA predicted that China could become the world’s largest energy user by the end of the year. 

Following its ratification by Russia, the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005. Under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the protocol stipulates that all signatory states from the industrialized world accede to mandatory emission limits. With the purpose of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions to at least 5 percent below 1990 levels, and with some 170 signatory countries, it is certainly a laudatory effort. However, tension between a handful of developed countries, the so-called “Annex 1” countries, and the developing world continues to undermine the full potential of the Protocol. The United States and other industrialized states have argued that developing countries such as India, China, and Brazil ought to bear their fair share of the burden. Currently, non-Annex 1 countries have no obligations to reduce their emissions. This is one of the several principled arguments that led the U.S. to ultimately reject Kyoto. With some of the world’s largest emitters loath to accept mandatory emissions targets, the Kyoto Protocol’s effectiveness as a binding convention is greatly undercut.

In response, developing nations ask, why should they be bound by the same obligations as their far richer neighbors? Developing countries have not contributed to most of the greenhouse gases lingering in the atmosphere over the past 150 years, after all. Their first priority is to raise millions of citizens out of poverty, and it is not necessarily fair to ask them to do in the course of a decade what early-industrialized nations had more than a century to amend, to solve a problem that they did not create in the first place. It was this line of argument that led to the UNFCC to include the concept of common but differentiated responsibility into the Kyoto agreement—that is, all countries share a common responsibility to address climate change but, given the vast disparities in financial and technical resources among them, poorer countries’ commitments should not put climate change ahead of economic development.    

Nevertheless, a number of Annex I countries argue that the larger developing countries’ current and projected CO2 outputs (China’s in particular) justify obligations to the global community.

Could the Motivation to Change Come from Within?

Though China isn’t required to reduce GHG emissions under Kyoto, its leadership hasn’t sat entirely idle on the topic of climate change. In 2004, the government announced a 10-percent target for reducing emissions. And, as climate change threatens increased desertification, drought and floods for millions of Chinese citizens, Beijing has finally begun to acknowledge that the dangers of global warming will hinder civil stability and breakneck economic growth. According to the World Bank, 20 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in China.  Furthermore, in 2005 the Chinese government itself admitted that, if the total cost of air and water pollution were taken into account, their GDP would be revised downward 5.8 percent, a stunning admission given that even developed countries like the U.S. don’t consider such figures.  Other motivating factors are found in the pressure to provide the “Green Olympics” and the realization that its deadly pollution has already spurred several incidents of social unrest, For all these reasons, Beijing is attempting to clean up its act and to deliver on some of its resolutions.

Still, many are skeptical that Beijing will be able to commit to its 10 percent emissions cut, as widespread corruption and a need to see immediate profitability among the bureaucracy, as well as lack of accountability by private firms, provide obstacles to even beginning a resolution towards capping emissions. Coal remains plenty and cheap to come by, and China meets two-thirds of its energy needs through coal, burning more of it than the U.S., Europe and Japan combined.  According to the New York Times, provincial officials in China often reject cleaner, more efficient technologies in favor of their dirtier, older alternatives not only because they are cheaper, but also because they take less time to build.  Many, regardless of their position in the political food chain, are hesitant to enforce rules and regulations that may potentially slow down economic growth. Reluctant to anger provincial officials, who are largely autonomous and have contributed greatly to pollution, the government has “indefinitely postponed” a 2006 “Green Gross Domestic Product” report, the latest installment in a project that aims to calculate how much money pollution costs the country each year.  Lack of transparency at all governmental levels threaten any truly effective measures or attempts to promote widespread energy efficiency, and it is difficult to find accountability for environmental damage.

Make It Profitable to Make it Possible

Though it should not come as surprising, China—defined here by its government and its business and industries—finds ample motivation to address climate change, either directly or indirectly, when it stands to turn a profit. Thought it’s not alone in this category (many developing countries, such as Costa Rica, derive considerable revenue through carbon offset schemes), China is so big and is changing so fast that their decisions have a potentially tremendous impact on the overall climate picture. 
 
China has become one of the world’s largest players in the development of solar cells. Already, about 80 percent of China’s hot water comes from solar energy.  Solar power worldwide has grown 41 percent over the past three years, thanks to rapid improvements in available technologies and increased knowledge of climate change.  Chinese developers, consumers and investors have not ignored this surge (and increased possibility of profit), as companies like SunTech and LDK, among the world’s largest producers of photovoltaic panels, are Chinese-grown. Chinese firms sold $2.6 billion of solar water heaters over the past year, suggesting that some clean technologies can indeed stay competitive in a country that heavily supports the coal industry. 

An arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol, the CDM allows Annex I countries to buy carbon credits from developing countries—in place of reducing their own emissions—by investing in clean-tech projects there. According to the Cleantech Group, venture capital investment in China’s clean-tech industry skyrocketed by nearly 150 percent from 2005 to 2006.  China has set a goal for 15 percent of its total primary energy supply to be green by 2020.  Considering the burgeoning growth of its solar, wind, biomass, and hydro industries, and the government subsidies for the research and development of various green technologies—although tax reductions are only available to a few projects—the future of renewable energy in China is not as dim as one might expect, considering the prevalence of coal.

One can only hope that the rumors of China building a new coal-fired power plant each week soon become a thing of the past. In the end, change for environmental policy and renewable energy use in China must come attached with economic opportunity. Otherwise, China’s leadership will likely repeat the same justifications it always has—and the rest of the world, bound to be affected by China’s energy use, will continue to wring their hands.

The Politics of Climate Change and Development