Asia Society panel on US-China climate, Obama & Copenhagen (VIDEO)
The video of our recent Monday morning panel at the Asia Society in NY is available online. Professor Jerome Cohen presided over the event. NRDC China Program Director Barbara Finamore discussed China’s progress on climate and the opportunities for international collaboration. Orville Schell talked about the US-China dynamic and the recent Asia Society-Center for American Progress-Monitor Group report on carbon capture and sequestration. I talked about the thorny question of how China will implement and meet its energy and carbon targets on the ground.
Things are moving at a rapid clip these days. This panel was just two weeks ago, but the landscape has already shifted in a number of major ways – it came right before the series of US-China energy collaborations announced during Obama’s visit, prior to the US emissions reduction announcement, and before China’s carbon intensity target news.
During this panel, we talk about very interesting progress on the “how do we know China will do what it says it will?” front that many outside of China may not be aware of – including the push to use bureaucratic job evaluations to meet China’s energy intensity and environmental targets, as well as the Top 1000 energy consuming enterprises program. When China says that its recently announced carbon intensity targets will be “binding” domestically, the bureaucratic job evaluations (that determine the promotion prospects of government leaders), bureaucratic tools for punishing poor performance, and other measures are the types of initiatives that will be put in place to make this a reality on the ground. Xie Zhenhua, China’s lead climate negotiator, was explicit about this at last week’s press conference (“Domestically, they will be binding. We’ll use statistics, monitoring, bureaucratic evaluations and accountability systems to realize these targets.” “在国内来说它是有约束力的，我们要通过统计、监测、考核、问责来实现这个目标。”)
The challenges – of course – are still significant, but this only strengthens the argument for strong, decisive US-China collaboration on emissions monitoring, environmental governance, energy efficiency, CCS, and so on. The US EPA and China’s NDRC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (download PDF) on greenhouse gas emissions monitoring the week of President Obama’s visit to China. The agreement is extremely general and needs to be fleshed out, but this is certainly a start. The series of US-China energy announcements on efficiency, electric vehicles, CCS, etc. is another very positive recent development.
We are farther along towards a true global climate deal, with the US, China and the other major emitters in the game. Let’s hope for real progress in Copenhagen. Let us know if you’ll be there. Our team begins to arrive this coming weekend for the big show.
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[...] NRDC has posted video and a synopsis of the recent Asia Society US-China climate panel discussion. ProfessorJerome [...]