Among policies tackling climate change, the Kyoto Protocol is the most recent, internationally encompassing treaty. According to the United Nations website, The Kyoto Protocol was organized 12 years ago by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), consisting of 192 parties, and signed by 37 countries and member nations of the European Union. The protocol legally bound the signatories to lower greenhouse gas emission targets to assigned amounts within 2008-2012. One of the most controversial aspects of the Protocol was the U. S.’s refusal to ratify the treaty.
In December of this year, the U.S. and several other nations will once again be given the chance to cooperatively set lower carbon dioxide emission targets at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Like the Kyoto Protocol, this year’s conference has been organized by the UNFCC. As a prelude to the final conference, international talks on a smaller scale have been taking place at various cities around the world, the most recent of which was in Barcelona. The result of the smaller talks is an increasing concern among developing nations about the commitments of more developed nations to contribute funding for clean energy technology and reduce the effects of global warming in developing countries. This concern has been magnified between China and the U.S., two of the world’s biggest economies.
With its increasing economic growth, China has seen rapid industrialization, which has resulted in more pollution. According to The Economist, the U.S. and China are currently the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, with China’s emissions narrowly surpassing those of the U.S. Coal is cheap and abundant in China, and is therefore burned to produce the majority of its electricity. According to China’s National Climate Change Programme, a national plan to address climate change written in 2007, “One of the main reasons for China’s low energy efficiency and high GHG emission intensity is the backward technologies of energy production and utilization in China. On one hand, there are relatively large gaps between China and the developed countries in terms of technologies of energy exploitation…on the other hand, out of date processes and technologies still occupy a relatively high proportion of China’s key industries.” While China is attempting to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, the switch to renewable energy will take a significant toll on its national economy.
Localized energy development will require more funding from the national government. According to China’s National Climate Change Programme, “Remarkable disparity in economic development exists among different regions of China. In 2005, the per capita GDP of the eastern areas of China was U.S. $2,877, while that of the western areas was only 39.5% of the former.” As a result, the Chinese government is looking to developed nations, including the U.S., to help foot the bill for the advancement of cleaner energy sources.
As America struggles to recover from a major economic recession and its legislative focus is centered on healthcare reform, U.S. Congress is reluctant to tackle the issue of climate change. President Obama is not ready to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a set target at an international agreement without the approval of Congress. However, progress on a climate bill is hindered by strong partisanship. According to MSNBC, Republican Senators boycotted a recent committee debate over the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee’s bill to curb greenhouse gases. Despite the boycott, Democratic senators voted to pass the bill out of committee so that it could be debated on the Senate floor. Republican congressmen are skeptical about the bill’s true cost to taxpayers based on an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that they find unconvincing. Despite concerns about the impact of clean energy growth on the U.S. economy, some economists foresee positive effects from decreasing the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly, McKinsey and Company’s business journal, economist Nicholas Stern discussed the benefits of alternative energy growth to the U.S. economy. According to Stern, capitalizing on existing technology, such as energy-efficient construction and insulation will save money, increase employment, and simultaneously stimulate both the economy and the growth of the green sector. The U.S. has begun to take domestic initiatives to curb greenhouse gases. The American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by Congress in September provided funding for the growth of the renewable energy industry.
Regardless of domestic efforts in both China and the U.S. to promote energy efficiency, these countries will need to cooperate on an international level in order commit to legally binding targets and to implement technology transfer with each other. Both China and the United States, as well as other industrialized nations, face enormous pressure from the international community to bear the majority of responsibility for reducing global warming. In a press release from the conference in Barcelona, UNFCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer emphasized these expectations. “I look to industrialized countries to raise their ambitions to meet the scale of the challenges we face,” Boer said. “And I look to industrialized nations for clarity on the amount of short and long-term finance they will commit.”