The US and China have Tuesday a new agreement presented for ‘enhanced cooperation in tackling the climate crisis’. On the eve of the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Joe Biden this Wednesday in San Francisco, it is an important signal that both countries want to prevent their disagreement on all kinds of topics from getting in the way of climate negotiations. After a visit by then Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August 2022, China halted all consultations, including on climate.
The agreement between the two largest climate polluters, together accounting for almost half of all greenhouse gases, could provide an impetus for the climate summit in Dubai that starts at the end of this month. In 2015, an agreement between the US and China paved the way for the Paris Climate Agreement, the most important global agreements to combat climate change.
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Promises
In the US-China agreement, both countries recognize the increasing damage that climate change is causing globally. They call global warming “one of the greatest challenges of our time.”
The agreement includes agreements on a wide range of topics. These range from a reaffirmation of the Paris climate goals and cooperation in the field of energy efficiency in industry and infrastructure, to promises to produce more sustainable energy, to also tackle other greenhouse gases, to develop projects where CO2 is captured and stored, and can be used for a circular economy.
It is remarkable that China is recognizing for the first time that climate policy is not only about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but also about other greenhouse gases. Especially the decision on methane – a greenhouse gas tens of times more potent than CO2 – is remarkable. At the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, China refused to join a coalition of dozens of countries that promised to reduce their methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, including from gas and oil extraction, but also from cattle farms. Precisely because of the power of methane, reducing emissions is a quick way to combat climate change.
Few concrete goals
The plan contains few concrete goals. Regarding sustainable energy, it only says that countries ‘aim to triple’ by 2030, in order to more quickly replace the use of coal, oil and gas. But nothing has been laid down about phasing out fossil fuels, and how quickly that should happen. China is still building many coal-fired power stations. Last year, Xi Jinping said that energy security is more important for his country than reducing greenhouse gases.
David Waskow, director of international climate at the World Resources Institute, a global climate and environment think tank, said it was “disappointing that the two countries have not spoken about the need to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels this decade.” According to him, this should be the central theme at the climate summit in Dubai.
Waskow also lacks clear figures. “The only specific goal in the declaration is for each country to develop five large-scale projects that promote carbon capture by the end of the decade,” Waskow said. “While that technology is likely needed to decarbonize some industrial processes, such as cement production, it can only make up a limited portion of the overall emissions reductions needed to keep our climate goals within reach.” He believes that negotiators in Dubai should realize this and not focus too much on these types of technological solutions.
Distrust partly gone
The greatest importance of the agreement is therefore that it has removed some of the mistrust between the two countries. Their climate envoys, the American John Kerry and the Chinese Xie Zhenhua, have been working on it for months. The Chinese government even brought Xie back after he retired following a heart attack. John Kerry, now 79, has repeatedly said he wanted to quit. Both have known each other for many years and have a good relationship.
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In the meantime, the US will continue to insist on the need for China to make its plans more concrete. China works with relative reduction figures – which depend on the growth of the economy. The Americans insist on turning these into absolute numbers. Also, if the Americans had their way, China would have to reduce its dependence on coal much faster.
In turn, the Chinese fear that the current American government will not be able to realize great plans if Donald Trump were to win the presidential elections next year. Trump has repeatedly announced that he wants to put an end to the Democrats’ climate plans and focus on the use of coal, oil and gas. He also did this after his victory in 2020. And although several climate plans were reversed during his term, coal use fell faster than under his predecessors.
Despite the distrust, the agreement can be an important step. Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency said in September in The Washington Post: “I don’t know what the chances are of an agreement between China and the United States. […] But I do know that it is very unlikely that we will achieve our climate goals if such an agreement does not happen.”
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