One extraordinary success in the past few months has been Chinese climate negotiators much more effective public relations strategy. They are getting their main messages out in the press, speaking actively about China’s own programs and their expectations of other parties. This contrasts with China’s former reticence except in the context of a very stilted Ministry of Foreign Affairs press briefing.
The big news this past weekend was more about the weather than the climate. While the week began with lots of news about Chinese climate discussions with a number of key partners, as well as key U.S. China trade talks, by the weekend, the main talk of Beijing was astonishingly early snow.
Beijing, which generally has little precipitation in the winter, and rarely before December, saw a snowstorm start October 31 and build up through much of November 1. Beijingers were then surprised to learn that, in fact, the snow was seeded by the local meteorological bureau, which had hoped for rain and had not predicted the unseasonably cold temperatures. The Daily Mail has some great pictures of the storm here.
Returning to the climate, Chinese negotiators were in active meeting mode last week. The Asia-Pacific Partnership met in Shanghai, with representatives from Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States, while a Chinese-EU Workshop on Technology met in the same conference center.
Much media attention was focused on whether there would be a separate U.S.-China bilateral climate agreement, and the rather unsurprising story is that there won’t be. The United States and China actually signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on climate change and clean energy back in July. I hear there is plenty of activity going on and likely to be new programs and projects announced soon and over the next few months.
This headline surprised me this week: “China Outperforms U.S. on Green,” especially when I discovered that it was a piece in the New Scientist about our own WRI report on China. The commentator implies WRI’s report shows China is way ahead of the U.S., when in fact we present an argument simply that China is following its own pretty effective path. China is still struggling with air and water pollution issues, and its situation is akin to the United States in the early 1970s when we were just bringing into effect our major air and water laws, as well as establishing the Environmental Protection Agency.
The big wind deal announced shortly thereafter was actually not in China, but in the United States. A Chinese-U.S. consortium announced a $1.5 billion 600 MW wind project in West Texas to be financed mainly by Chinese banks. Not surprisingly, this project has turned out to be controversial in the United States, with many questions about how many jobs will be created in each country.
Even more international interest was focused on U.S.-China trade talks last week. China’s official news agency Xinhua greeted the talks’ completion with the headline: “China, U.S. pledge no new trade protection measures.” Since the Chinese worry about climate-related trade measures, this reassurance is important to bringing both countries closer to a climate deal. Similarly, the U.S. worries about Chinese domestic controls and subsidies, and the Chinese agreed to lift an important control on green technology imports. Chinese Trade Minister Chen Deming announced that China would no longer impose a 70% domestic content requirement on foreign wind turbine producers in China.
With Copenhagen less than two months away, China’s international climate change relations seem in permanent high gear. This week was notable both for a new Memorandum of Understanding between China and India on climate change cooperation, and for a telephone call between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao to encourage progress toward Copenhagen.
This week also featured a telephone call between President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao, which both countries reported to be focused on climate change. The reported content needless to say was about pushing for a successful deal at Copenhagen. What was most important was that in the midst of all the things happening globally in the world now and politically in the U.S. the two leaders kept the climate priority high on the agenda.
The new Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual Report devotes a section to climate change (see pages 27-30). While the report expresses concern about the quality of Chinese enforcement, it also notes the significant progress China has made, especially in reducing sulfur pollution (a critical air pollutant). It also makes a number of concrete suggestions for how to support improvements in China, including increased cooperation in the areas of policy making, measurement and reporting, regulations and civil society involvement.
