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On July 17, US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry visited Beijing for talks with China's Special Envoy on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua, visited Wang Yi, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Committee, and then met with Vice President Han Zheng and Premier Li Qiang on the 19th.
Prior to Kerry's visit, current US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had already visited China; Before Kerry left China, an even more heavyweight guest, former U.S. Secretary of State and renowned international strategist Henry Kissinger, visited China at the age of 100 and was received by Chinese leaders at a high level.
In a dizzying series of diplomatic shuttles between China and the United States, Kerry's visit to China as climate envoy seems slightly low-key and marginal, and not conspicuous. But in the eyes of some experts, Kerry's visit to China is a wealth of diplomatic and policy information.
On this issue, we interviewed Zheng Kaifang, an associate researcher at the IPP Center for Economic Policy Research.
Q: John Kerry, former US Secretary of State, Senator, presidential candidate, and now Special Envoy for Climate. Why did the climate envoy, who has extensive political experience, choose to visit China at this juncture? Combined with the recent intensive visits to China by senior US officials such as Blinken, Yellen and Kissinger, what signal does this send?
Zheng Kaifang: I think there are the following points that need attention.
First, climate cooperation is considered one of the few areas where cooperation can be reached between China and the United States. After Pelosi came to power in August last year, as a countermeasure, Sino-US climate change talks were suspended. Since the beginning of this year, high-level US dignitaries have visited China intensively: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July. Kerry's visit to China should also be an action to strike while the iron is hot, reflecting that despite the many differences between China and the United States, a series of Sino-US dialogue and cooperation mechanisms, including climate change talks, have been reactivated.
Relatively speaking, as a global public issue, addressing the climate crisis can be detached from geopolitical confrontation, which plays an extremely important role in promoting dialogue and cooperation between China and the United States and maintaining Sino-US relations from "derailing". Moreover, the world wants to see China and the United States meet each other halfway in response to the global climate crisis. China and the United States are the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, accounting for more than 40% of the world's total carbon emissions, and both are economic and political powers, so Sino-US climate cooperation has become a key support for maintaining and promoting the multilateral process of global climate governance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement as the core.
Second, the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be held in November this year. COP28 is an important node for global climate governance, which will complete the first global inventory after the entry into force of the Paris Agreement[1]. The global stocktaking will review and showcase the progress countries have made in meeting their commitments under the Paris Agreement. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the United States to take substantial action to demonstrate its contribution to the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Then-Secretary of State John Kerry signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of the United States on April 22, 2016 (Photo: Network)
We know that on June 1, 2017, the year after the Paris Agreement officially entered into force (November 2016), then US President Trump announced his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which had a bad impact on global climate governance. It was not until 2021, when Biden was sworn in as US president, that he returned to the Paris Agreement. Since taking office, the Biden administration has launched a series of new climate policies and actively engaged in climate diplomacy, making climate a key area to restore and enhance its leadership in the global governance system. In addition to returning to the Paris Agreement, the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which plans to invest $369 billion to subsidize climate change and energy security-related industries such as clean energy, clean manufacturing, and new energy vehicles, making it the largest investment plan in the field of climate in the history of the United States. However, the negative effects of the Inflation Reduction Act on global trade, such as the global subsidy contest, the de-sinicization of supply chains, and capital outflows from Europe, Japan and South Korea, are already emerging, and the actual effect of reducing emissions will take years to be seen.
The United States returned to the Paris Agreement in 2021, and at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the same year, China jointly issued the Glasgow Joint Declaration on Strengthening Climate Action in the 21st Century and 2020 (Glasgow Joint Declaration), clarifying that China and the United States will accelerate action in the critical decade from 2021 to 2030 and carry out and strengthen cooperation on various areas to solve the climate crisis. However, in August 2022, due to Pelosi's departure, China-US climate cooperation and dialogue were suspended, the implementation of the Glasgow Joint Declaration came to a standstill, and the preparation of the "Enhanced Climate Action Working Group in the 21st 2020s" was also suspended.
In addition, before his visit to China, special climate envoy John Kerry made it clear at a hearing in the US Congress that the United States will not pay climate compensation to developing countries under any circumstances. The United States, as the largest developed country with the largest economy, has also been negative in implementing the Paris Agreement's commitment to provide at least $100 billion a year in climate assistance to developing countries – Biden has pledged to increase climate assistance to developing countries to $11.4 billion a year by 2024 – at that time only 28.6% of its share ($39.9 billion per year). Against the backdrop of developed countries' delay in fulfilling their pledge of "US$100 billion per year", the most significant outcome of last year's COP27 meeting was the decision to establish a "loss and damage fund", which aims to allow developed countries with greater responsibility for climate change to contribute funds to compensate countries affected by climate change. The United States, as the country with the largest cumulative amount of greenhouse climate emissions in history, has refused to take a position on the mechanism, and now it refuses to compensate countries affected by climate change, hindering the promotion of the "loss and damage fund" and related climate compensation mechanisms. When it comes to implementing climate finance, the US is far from what the Paris Agreement requires.
Therefore, the resumption of U.S.-China climate cooperation is very important for the United States, and they need to prove that the US government has taken substantive action to implement the Paris Agreement.
Q: Although the climate issue is a global issue, there are complex issues such as technological competition, economic development, and geopolitics behind it.
Zheng Kaifang: Exactly. While addressing climate change is seen as an area where China and the United States can be separated from the current political confrontation, have common interests, and can cooperate deeply, geopolitical and ideological rivalries between China and the United States will still be reflected in the field of climate governance.
Figure 2. Premier Li Qiang met with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry at the Great Hall of the People on the morning of July 18.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
First of all, the United States' "decoupling and disconnection" and "de-risking" in China's photovoltaic, power battery, new energy vehicles, chips, artificial intelligence and other fields have seriously affected Sino-US clean energy technology cooperation.
Second, the United States began to "seek" to change China's developing country status in international affairs. At a hearing before Kerry's visit, Republican House members asked Kerry to press China during his visit to persuade it to implement the same emission reduction standards as developed countries[2]. To this, Kerry responded that he would not mention the matter during his visit to China. However, this is an issue that deserves long-term attention.
In February, the US House of Representatives passed a "PRC is not a developing country" bill 415-0[3], which calls for efforts to ensure that "China does not receive preferential treatment or assistance because of its status as a developing country." In future Sino-US climate cooperation, the United States may continue to accuse and pressure the mainland, demanding that the mainland reduce emissions according to the standards of developed countries, or provide compensation funds to developing countries as a "developed economy" - which will crowd out the time and space for the mainland's industrial and economic sustainable development. And, not just in the area of climate, the United States is likely to make such requests to parties in more international organizations and international agreements.
Third, U.S. climate policy is likely to change as the ruling party changes. The Republican Party in the United States has been more passive in its participation in global climate governance and believes that it should not cooperate with China on climate issues. Many of the United States' "withdrawals" in climate governance were during the Republican Party administration - George W. Bush announced his unilateral withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001; In 2016, Trump announced his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. The lack of consistency in the United States' attitude towards climate change is one of the risk factors affecting the joint action of China and the United States on climate change in the "2021-2030 critical decade". Of course, under the framework of the Inflation Reduction Act, the United States will continue to support the investment, construction and development of new industries and technologies in climate-related fields.
Q: Under all these adverse conditions, why should China actively participate in the governance of global climate issues? What is our national interest in deeply participating in global climate governance?
Many people may not have noticed that during Kerry's visit to China, China held the second national ecological environmental protection conference (July 17-18).
Our first Eco-Environmental Protection Conference, held in 2018, formally established Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization for the first time. At the conference on ecological environmental protection held again after five years, the general secretary made a judgment on the overall situation facing the mainland's ecological environmental protection - "the structural, root cause and trend pressure of the mainland's ecological environmental protection has not been fundamentally alleviated." The mainland's economic and social development has entered a stage of high-quality development to accelerate greening and low-carbonization, and the construction of ecological civilization is still in a critical period of superimposed pressure and heavy burden. Based on this judgment, in the work of addressing climate change, we proposed to correctly handle the relationship between the "dual carbon" commitment and independent action - that is, the "dual carbon" goal is unswerving, but the action should be pragmatic, and the path, method, rhythm and intensity to achieve this goal should and must be controlled by ourselves, not influenced by others.
Therefore, China's adherence to the "dual carbon" goal and active participation in climate governance are strategic choices made independently. China must do a pragmatic job in its own carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. In fact, promoting the "dual carbon" strategy and actively participating in global climate governance have positive significance for the long-term development of our country at several levels.
First of all, it is to seize a new industrial track by promoting "dual carbon" and lead a new round of industrial revolution. The core of the industrial revolution is actually a revolution in energy conversion and application models. According to the International Energy Agency's Energy Technology Outlook 2023, the continent currently dominates the manufacture and trade of most clean energy technologies, such as wind, batteries, electrolyzers, solar panels and heat pumps. The advantages in clean energy technology and investment are an important reason why the mainland officially proposed the "dual carbon" goal in 2020 and systematically promoted its implementation. Seizing this track, the mainland can become the leading country leading a new round of industrial revolution.
Secondly, whether from the perspective of promoting industrial economic upgrading and high-quality development, or from the current severe situation of the world's largest greenhouse gas emissions in the mainland, promoting the implementation of the "dual carbon" goal is an important task for the mainland to achieve high-quality development. As long as we do a good job in carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, we will make substantial contributions to the global process of addressing climate change - in 2019, the mainland has exceeded the 2020 climate action target ahead of schedule, reducing carbon emission intensity by 18.8% in 2020 compared with 2015, and increasing the proportion of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 15.9%; At the same time, the "1+N" policy system for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in mainland China has been gradually completed, the work paths and tasks of carbon peaking in various industries and regions have been basically clarified, and the carbon pricing mechanism based on "carbon emission trading + voluntary emission reduction trading (CCER)" has also been basically established.
Finally, through a series of actions such as the "dual carbon" commitment, the mainland has actively participated in multilateral actions on global climate and environmental governance, which not only demonstrates its responsibility as a major country, but also enhances its international discourse power in related fields. In addition to firmly promoting the "dual carbon" process, the mainland government also invested 20 billion yuan to set up the "China Climate Change South-South Cooperation Fund". There are a number of energy infrastructure cooperation projects between the mainland and the BRI countries, which will enable the mainland to play a greater role in assisting the BRI countries to achieve their energy transition and carbon neutrality goals in the future.
Bibliography:
[1] The Paris Agreement stipulates that starting from 2023, the overall progress of global action will be reviewed every five years to help countries increase their efforts and strengthen international cooperation to achieve the long-term global goal of addressing climate change.
[2]https://fortune.com/2023/07/13/john-kerry-stupid-lie-private-jets-climate-change-house-republicans/
[3] PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th- congress/house-bill/1107/all-info
Topic discussion
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The Institute of Public Policy (IPP) of South China University of Technology is an independent, non-profit research platform for knowledge innovation and public policy. IPP carries out a series of research work focusing on China's institutional reform, social policy, China's discourse power and international relations, and forms a good pattern of coordinated development of knowledge innovation and policy consultation on this basis. IPP's vision is to build an open knowledge innovation and policy research platform and become a world-leading Chinese think tank.