Dear US and China: Stop pointing fingers, work together on climate
Last week, China stoked the fire in its conflict with the U.S. Our environment will suffer as a result.
Last week, the divide between the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters deepened — and that hurts our collective fight against climate change.
Following the United States State Department’s attack on China’s climate record in late September, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the Trump administration on Monday of being an “environmental troublemaker,” committing a “major retrogression on climate change.” China also criticized the U.S.’s intended withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, set to become official on November 4, and its deregulation of species protections.
This climate tit-for-tat complicates things, while most importantly, hurting our global progress on climate change.
“The biggest threats to the planet are the lack of U.S. climate leadership at home and the unwillingness of the U.S. to engage with China,” Joanna Lewis, a China specialist at Georgetown University, told The New York Times in 2018.
The U.S. and China haven’t always disagreed like this: They’ve cooperated on climate change and clean energy for decades, even as tensions increased. Former U.S. President Obama made climate key to the China-U.S. relationship and even jointly entered into the Paris Agreement with China.
But the Trump presidency seems to have stunted that relationship. In his first term, Trump has successfully distanced the country from its allies and its alliances on climate and energy with China.
In more ways than one, China’s recent statement is a strategic move. It comes just three days after their announcement of carbon-neutrality by 2060 and demonstrates China President Xi Jinping’s desire to use climate for political gain.
The statement also comes just two weeks before Election Day in the U.S., where voters increasingly worry about climate change. Should Former Vice President Joe Biden win the U.S. presidency, his administration would likely resume global climate action. And if that happens, Beijing won’t want to be left behind.
“It looks to me like [China is] trying to get ahead of a possible Biden win and reversal of Trump’s positions on domestic and international climate and environment,” Andrew Light, a senior climate aide in Obama’s State Department, told Axios.
If Trump wins, repatching a U.S.-China relationship will be tough. But a Biden presidency would turn things around, pressuring China to drop fossil fuels (which the former vice president has also promised to phase out) and encouraging future U.S.–China agreements on emissions.
And a healthy U.S.-China partnership is necessary for a sustainable future. Emissions in both countries continue to rise, but the prior coordination between China, the top emitter, and the U.S., the second-largest emitter, encouraged innovation in clean energy and strong goal-setting.
The bottom line is that both countries need to get their shit together. Economic power — presumably what both countries are after — relies on investing in clean energy and resiliency, not supporting dying fossil fuel industries or pointing fingers.
Without their cooperation, the world won’t stand a chance at survival.