Last week’s joint announcement by President Obama and President Xi was a remarkable moment in global climate politics. It was, in some ways, noteworthy that the leaders were even talking about climate change at all. President Obama and President Xi had already made a game-changing joint announcement last November that set out the targets to limit emissions that each country will include in the upcoming Paris agreement at the international climate talks in December. And with bilateral relations strained by friction over cyber-spying and saber rattling in the South China Sea, one might have expected climate change to be crowded off the agenda. Instead, it was front and center. That’s because both men have come to see that when the leaders of the world’s great powers meet, climate change is too important to take a back seat to the passing challenges of the day. That in itself made this meeting significant.
But even more remarkable was the outcome. Despite the tensions that have riled other areas of the relationship, climate change emerged as an area of critical progress and strengthened collaboration. Presidents Obama and Xi identified specific areas of future cooperation and narrowed differences in a number of key areas. And China, for its part, announced sweeping new policy initiatives, including an emission trading system for highly polluting industries, and "green dispatch" rules that will give cleaner sources of electricity first chance to sell their power to the grid. China also agreed to take steps to strictly control its public support for high-carbon investments, both domestically and overseas.
Each of these announcements represents important progress in the global effort to contain climate change. But the most significant achievement of this new climate détente may be that Presidents Obama and Xi forged a common vision for an agreement in Paris that addresses a range of crucial, formerly contentious issues. This shared perspective will surely set the tone and help amplify the momentum for a final agreement in December.
To appreciate the significance of the U.S. and China presenting a common vision for the global climate regime, a little context is necessary. Suffice it to say that the U.S. and China have not generally seen eye-to-eye on issues of climate diplomacy. The global powers have traditionally lined up on opposite sides of a fault line in international climate politics between developed and developing countries. China and other developing countries have long maintained that they should not be required to take on the same kinds of obligations as developed countries. Developed countries, they correctly argue, have produced the lion’s share of global emissions and have greater technological and financial resources to address the problem. As a result, many developing countries have insisted that climate agreements maintain a clear “firewall” between the obligations taken by developed countries and those taken by developing countries.
That rigid distinction has impeded global progress. It has allowed those on both sides of the divide who oppose climate action to argue that “we” shouldn’t do anything until “they” do. But due in no small part to the patient diplomacy of the Obama administration, China has softened its posture on the firewall over time. At the Conference of the Parties in Durban in 2011, China joined a decision that the Paris agreement would have a unified legal form “applicable to all.” This includes emission reduction and other national commitments. This was a key first step, but it left plenty of ambiguity and room for interpretation.
With the common vision articulated in the most recent U.S.-China joint announcements, China has signaled its willingness to adopt a common, integrated regime that encompasses all of the major elements of the agreement. This reflects a remarkable evolution in China’s position from the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, the last major global climate agreement. Thus, in Copenhagen, China held fast to a rigid interpretation of the traditional differentiation between developed and developing countries. But in the joint announcement last November, the U.S. and China agreed that the differences in responsibility and capability should be seen “in light of national circumstances,” a recognition that categorizing countries as either “developed” or “developing” does not adequately describe the capacity of a particular country to contribute to the global effort, nor does it account for how that capacity might change over time. This formulation was subsequently adopted by all of the Parties at COP20 in Lima last December.
In Copenhagen, China famously resisted the inclusion of a mid-century decarbonization target, fearing that it would be on the hook if the developed countries did not follow through on their commitments. At the White House last week, China agreed that countries should put forward mid-century strategies for transitioning to low-carbon economies, and on the need for the low-carbon transformation of the entire global economy this century.
In Copenhagen, China insisted on separate systems for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions reductions from developed and developing countries. At the White House, they agreed to a common transparency system that would afford less capable countries some flexibility in implementation.
And finally, in Copenhagen only developed countries took on commitments to provide finance to help developing countries meet the challenges of climate change. Last week’s announcement reiterated the critical importance of developed countries’ meeting their existing pledges, and enhancing their contributions in the Paris agreement. But China also agreed to provide $3.1 billion in support to help poorer countries address the challenges of a changing climate, by far its biggest climate finance commitment to date. This sets an important precedent for other developing countries that have resources to help their neighbors respond to the crisis, and the announcement specifically encourages other countries to contribute.
In short, the common vision represents an unprecedented alignment of interests on many key building blocks of the Paris agreement -- legal form, differentiation, emission reduction pledges, a long term goal, transparency and finance. Of course, this alone does not ensure a successful outcome in Paris. Under the rules of the international climate change negotiations, decisions must have the support of virtually all the participating countries. Still, the prospects for reaching consensus have been considerably brightened by the fact that the world’s two largest emitters have forged a sense of common purpose and are no longer pointing fingers across an obsolete firewall.
You can thank President Obama and President Xi for taking action on the climate by clicking here.