Leading emitters failing the world

For quite a while, China and the US have been linked together and put under the global spotlight due to both their global economic and climate impacts. However, they belong to different economic bloc, the South and North. The US, as the largest developed country, has been widely criticized for failing to fulfill its duty and take the leadership in fighting the climate crisis.  On the other hand, China, though already implementing massive domestic action to turn its low-carbon vision into reality, is blamed for using its status as a developing country as an excuse to continue polluting the world, something not accepted by much of the developed world.

China has, more than once, highlighted its status as a developing country at the Tianjin UNFCCC conference, which was concluded on Friday. This position is the fundamental reason for its not choosing to cap its emissions for absolute reductions but only to slow down the growth of emissions. However, its domestic targets to reduce carbon intensity of per unit GDP by 40-45% by 2020 have been mostly recommended globally, and the implementation of the ambitious targets will go through provincial-level efforts, to ensure the national goal is realized through this top-down approach.

Facing similar concern as China that emissions caps will have an impact upon GDP, the US has been lagging behind China after failing to pass the climate bill this year.  Despite this, the fact is that climate action plans have been designed and even executed at the sub-national state levels through the bottom-up approach, and climate efforts at the federal level are still actionable through the Clean Air Act and other related legislation.

Now the question is whether the climate issue should be perceived as a global one or just an issue connected between China and the US. Whether the two big nations are ready to stand up to take the leadership of the global climate efforts if they are entrusted with this privilege. Or if they fail in their duties, shall the whole world lose confidence in fighting climate change and overlook all efforts which have been, are and to be done on the ground even without any international deal.

The problem is that the whole world, influenced by media coverage, has given too much attention to climate negotiations, whose results are unfortunately decided by national interests rather than global interests. Most delegates negotiate for their countries' interests rather than the global interests or precisely the interests of the whole mankind. So in the near term, there is only a slim chance of reaching a deal.

The lack of progress at the UNFCCC conference in Tianjin has reduced hopes for a successful meeting in Cancun, Mexico in two months' time. If trust in governments' attempt to collaborate is lost, we have instead to look to people working on the ground and projects at home.

Pictured: Jonathan Pershing, US Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chief US negotiator and China's Chief negotiator Su Wei