I’ve been engaged in several discussions, N-1 of them being in private e-mail, about what exactly China did in Copenhagen and what this predicts about humanity’s ability to address climate chaos in the next few decades. I think it’s reasonable to summarize my position in these discussions with the following borderline oversimplification:
- China blew up Copenhagen.
- China will not be a willing partner in addressing climate chaos for the foreseeable future.
I know how extreme this sounds, and I’m painfully aware of how it sounds coming from an American, as at least a couple of my correspondents have pointed out. Don’t waste your keystrokes lecturing me; I’ve already done the introspection and self-flagellation routine far beyond what’s called for. And the facts, being typically stubborn things, remain unchanged.
As Mark Lynas, who was in the room when the final agreement was agreed to, points out (see below), it was indeed China’s fault. They got exactly what they wanted, they managed to lay the burned out husk of Copenhagen at Obama’s doorstep, and many in the media and online loved every morsel of it. I won’t go into what this says about the habit of reflexively blaming Big Bad America for every ill on and off the planet, but I think it’s clear that China was counting on this tendency to work to its advantage. And it did.
So much for the first point above. The second isn’t quite as cut and dried, but is still very difficult to argue with, if one takes the few seconds needed to ask the most obvious question: What does China want? Perhaps it’s my economics training, or the years I spent working at IBM and as a consultant and journalist, but I think the “what does X want” question should always be the first thing anyone asks when involved in any type of negotiation. It’s not as obvious a point as it sounds, based on the number of times I’ve seen even very experienced businesspeople violate it. Asking the question isn’t enough, of course. The key is to answer the question fully and accurately, after putting yourself in the other entity’s position.
So, what does China want? To make up for a few centuries of lost time. China sees a golden opportunity to leave behind their “developing nation” status and become the dominant world power. A very supportive international trade environment, a huge domestic population, and an authoritarian central government all add up to a unique chance for that country to awaken and “shake the world” as Napolean famously observed. The one nasty detail is that fueling their rise with their copious domestic coal reserves is at odds with what science tells us all of humanity should be doing right now: Dramatically reducing our CO2 emissions. This presents China with the following choice: Cooperate on the environmental issues and slow their growth considerably, possibly missing out on a chance to become the most dominant power in the world (or reduce their margin over the likely number 2, the US), or shun any attempt to constrain their actions, grow as quickly as possible, largely via CO2 intensive fuel sources, assume that we’ll figure out a way to fix the climate after they take a leading role in trashing it, and sprint to the number one power position? I think it’s clear which path China has chosen. (Don’t shrug off the thought that they envision themselves as being perfectly positioned in another 10 to 20 years to make gigantic profits by deploying desperately needed geoengineering technology, as well.)
Many people, including my friends, have pointed out how aggressively China is pushing forward with wind and solar technology. Of course they are–they need all the moving electrons they can get, plus those technologies will yield high profits from countries more willing to cut their emissions. China’s investments in these industries mean no more than their investment in car companies, new coal plants (using old, filthy technology, of course), or anything else; they’re simply different parts of their strategy. China can’t possibly build out renewables quickly enough to fuel their rapid economic growth, which is why they can’t accept even a promise to make their emissions peak in some future year. All the world ever got from them is their laughable 40-45% reduction in CO2 intensity, which coupled with their economic performance results in rising absolute emission levels.
And as I pointed out on this site already, China’s position is strengthened by the rest of the world trying hard to curtail CO2 emissions. This takes pressure off China to reduce their emissions, and in the short run it gives them an even greater economic advantage in trade; while we’re increasing our use of renewables and (possibly) rolling out expensive CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) retrofits on existing coal plants, they’re burning coal in essentially the filthiest and cheapest way possible.
The only lever the world has is trade sanctions, and I predict that eventually they’ll come into play. It might take 5 or 10 years, and it might take a heroic act of diplomacy to form a coalition of other nations to do it, but it will happen. China simply has no incentive to cooperate unless the entire country is forced to pay a price for the one externality we all lament not being priced today–carbon emissions. Until that happens or China has a profound shift in philosophy–perhaps triggered by climate chaos too rapid for even a purveyor of geoengineering solutions to adjust–they will be conspicuously and consistently inconvenient.
I mentioned Mark Lynas’ article above. It’s How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room (emphasis added):
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.
…
Here’s what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.
Shifting the blame
To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.
China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.
…
All this raises the question: what is China’s game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, “not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?” The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now “in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years’ time”.
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China’s growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action.
I beg you to click through and read it all.
What does all this say about Copenhagen and Mexico City and all forms of international climate agreements in general? I’m still trying to fit the pieces together, but so far, the emerging picture isn’t pretty.
Wasted keystrokes perhaps, but still….There’s no doubt that China has to shoulder a large portion of the blame for the Copenhagen fiasco and that reflexively blaming Yankee Imperialists for the world’s ills is probably not that productive but I think any analysis of as complex a process as Copenhagen which ends up pointing a finger at a single culprit has probably gone awry. Even if we take China completely out of the equation – let’s pretend that temporarily it doesn’t exist – and every country had come to an agreement based on their public commitments, Copenhagen would still have been a disaster. You know as well as anyone what the American 17% really means and how CDM, hot air and all the rest throw European cuts into a rather different light. Sure, the agreement would have been less bad but that’s rather different to claiming that the Chinese ruined everything.
Sorry, that doesn’t wash. What China scuttled was NOT the lame promises various countries are making now (and made prior to Copenhagen), but far more ambitious. Read what I quoted above in the post: “it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal.”
We had an agreement on serious CO2 emissions reduction agreed to by the countries that had to make the cuts, and China stopped it.
You can call that pointing fingers if you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened.
Coming from China (and India), this seems almost suicidal; after all, they are going to get severely hurt by AGW far earlier, and worse, than the US or Europe.
However, if I may make a prediction:
China has an ultra-realist take on foreign relations, and subscribes to the concept unrestricted warfare, one of whose precepts involve challenging the US in spheres where it doesn’t have a clear dominance, e.g. propaganda, or soft power more generally.
However, this wrecking might just be the prelude to China heroically intervening at the next summit and “saving the world” with a good treaty in 2010 (as the media would present it). The US gets the failed legacy of Copenhagen, and China gets the heroic legacy of enacting a successful compromise.
The alternative of course is that China’s leaders really are extremely myopic.
Motivated reasoning can resolve contradictions very effectively to favor our feelings. In fact, that is what it is: non-rational thinking we are fooled into feeling is otherwise. Mark Lynas’ thinking has likely been hijacked by motivated reasoning in his article’s authorship and insight he has shared in his article. I would explain this by observing that he has seen what he wants to see/needs to feel in a, predominantly, unconscious effort to feel moral; civil. Such is required to redress the stress of having condemned humanity to klimakatastrophe (a German word as English-particularly US English-doesn’t have a comparable word).
Too big a reach to be rational?
Consider: science sets emission targets-and proportions them (with some help from moral and negotiated precedents)-at levels and amounts the Western powers who have ratified Kyoto have failed to meet. The U.S., which, politically, cannot ratify the Kyoto framework, has chosen to reframe a treaty process it will not accept; will not build on. By claiming exceptionalism, the U.S. demands trust of humanity when the substance of our actions and process communicate that we are exceptionally untrustworthy.
In this context-and I volunteer this is greatly simplified-I see China’s actions, which are being spun as destructive to the process, as complimentary to the ‘hope’ of saving the planet from the developed world’s fossil carbon intensive lifestyles. The developed world has been gifted with a 2nd chance; an opportunity to prove a trustworthiness; to be moral. And our capacity to see this?
I find it helpful to recall that China’s economic miracle started when the clean air and water acts were passed. More than three decades later the US citizenry can now demonstrate the substance of our moral integrity with a change in how we live. As professed, do we really stand for clean/sustainable air and water; to have a sustainable planet for human life . . . or simply desire a pious cover to continue to circumvent responsibility for what we are doing (and to blame that hypocrisy on others-through the dynamics of motivated reasoning)?
I am back at your blog due to the September 16. 2009 post on methane. It was likely a comment by you on Dot Earth or Climate Progress which led me to find, and bookmark, that blog post. I mention this because, given what you know about CH4, you have at least pointed out-and because of what is NOT known-that the methane time bomb may have been detonated (and, BTW, this is a rational deduction that Andy and Joe seem to not find worth giving commensurate attention to; Gavin, at Real Climate. left out Arctic methane in his Its all about me (thane) post). My reading of what seems to be known about Arctic methane has turned up nothing from the science-limited as it is-that does not strongly point to the methane time bomb’s detonation (likely masked recently by various efforts to mitigate anthropogenic CH4). Anyway, having revisited your post on methane, I felt I would like to know what you have said about COP15′s failure. Working my way backwards through you recent postings I hit this one and felt impelled to comment as I feel you have been fooled by your feelings.
For the sake of critiquing China’s actions at COP15-differently-lets assume your and my read of renewed increase in CH4 is a view governments are factoring into their negotiation strategies concerning AGW mitigation-but not talking about. To the degree the tipping point for klimakatastrophe has been passed, it is logical that game theory calculations will shift from being primarily focused on finding ways to save the planet as a habitable home for humanity by reducing anthropogenic CO2e emissions, to being inclusive of geo-engineering (and more importantly who controlls this-profits from it-and who pays for it-this being different from who profits from it), and a corollary, attempting to mitigate the experience of climate change and the collapse of human society to be least unbeneficial to one’s geopolitical grouping. This last oxymoronically (motivated reasoning-based) rationalization is a, relatively, long term goal. Short term, the ongoing gaming will continue to focus on economic domination-something feelings are both strong about and consequential for non-rational thinking; are trusted.
In this context China’s actions are constructive both short and long term. The U.S.’s are such, only short term economic maneuvering to retain power. The aforementioned (and I would argue, systemic) avoidance of moral integrity regarding environmental stewardship by the developed nations means the failure of the UNFCCC process is required-differently-by both ‘sides’-China to keep the possibility of a just binding agreement possible; the U.S. to avoid growing up and acting responsibly relative to its fall into fascism. In this context the oversimplified judgement you have made about China and COP15 is unassailably correct because,and again, systemically, it is the lifestyle (morals) of the citizenry of the United States that leads the destruction of the planet. Preserving a pious sense of hegemony in the U.S./West trumps being rational about our choices and behavior around AGW. Culturally, we are lost to motivated reasoning; to self-aggrandizing propaganda . . . as Mark’s writing, its widespread embrace, and this post’s accolades for it confirms.
Over-simplistically-but less simple than yours ;)
Established goals for gaming theory driven policies calculates the UNFCCC approach to redressing AGW to be a systemic threat to the hegemony the US dollar holds as a global reserve currency (or, more to the point, the credit afforded the U.S. due to this role its fiat currency plays in global economics). The hubris such hegemony has afforded the U.S. iteration of fascism (global capitalism born of central bank ‘controlled’ fractional reserve banking, effected with fiat currencies denominated-but also guaranteed by-consumer credit), requires gutting the non-violent (legal) UNFCCC process to maintain its growth (functionally, a ‘growth’ that is cancer-like). China’s actions allowed this result to be affected, while consolidating its own grasp on power and further assuring its non-violent rise to hegemonic dominance. The U.S. gaming is dependent on overt and covert projection of power due to its military and clandestine mussel which it cannot fund due to the systemic indebting of its government to accommodate the short term ‘growth’ ‘needs’/greed of its corporate citizens/overlords.
Consequently, China has retained its independence and capacity to lead. This liberty, in conjunction with the trusted relationships it has purchased with its trade surplus garnered from the U.S. and the West, make commenter #3′s point one to both expect and trust . . . unless we in the U.S. (in particular), and the West (in general), immediately and radically walk our pious talk (and, but for Scotland’s legislation-withstanding the easy out on page 12, lines 9 & 10 of that law-none have come close to committing to such). The hope that a purported 1st step was taken with the Copenhagen Accord (if such is a meaningful term at the 15th meeting of the COP) preemptively relegates anything less than such moral integrity on the part of the developed nations’ citizenry-such that a change is effected in the systemic behaviors of its privileged corporate ones-is, in terms of leadership, to being what is, for now, being projected onto China’s behavior.
And if the irony of the following is not lost due to motivated reasoning, China, better than any other nation I am aware of, manages its currency according to the precepts of the US Constitution. Consequently, it has reaped the benefits afforded a nation that retains control of the value of its currency. The U.S. has violated the Constitution-and its wisdom-by abdicating Congress’ power under Article 1; Section 8 to the Federal Reserve. Western Europe’s power/independence was previously subsumed by its central bankers. The consequence is that we have arrived at the point in the cycle of wealth creation and consolidation that history means a wealth destruction/redistribution is in the offing. In the U.S. we are squandered our liberty and lost our Constitutionally circumscribed power in this dynamic. In any event, non-rational delusions born of motivated reasoning means that we are particularly unqualified to grasp what is next. Systemically we have unwittingly chosen to be pawns by having ransomed our right to be free to be irresponsible and adolescent in our pursuit of greed; an unconscious embrace of fascism.
My effort to write this comment was the muse for this haiku:
my life’s work is proof-
in the negative-this truth:
that our hope ‘s a sham
© 2009