US-China rivalry ‘threatens to undermine further action on fighting climate change’

A joint declaration between the two sides received a cautious welcome but climate policy experts fear ongoing tensions limit the room for further agreement
The two countries agreed a series of steps to tackle global warming, but have not committed to stronger targets on reducing emissions by 2030

Climate change

Echo Xie

Published: 9:01pm, 11 Nov 2021

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The joint declaration on fighting climate change between the United States and China has prevented a “worst case” scenario of a “decoupling over climate” but observers and activists warned that their ongoing rivalry threatened further cooperation in this area.

In an announcement two days before the end of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the two countries promised to cooperate on forming regulatory frameworks to reduce emissions in the next few years, cut methane emissions, protect forests and improve the exchange of technology and information.

Li Shuo, a global policy adviser for Greenpeace China, said the joint statement would set the tone for the Glasgow summit’s final decision.

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“The joint statement creates a cooperative spirit between the world’s two largest emitters. It prevents the worst – a US-China decoupling on climate action,” he said.

Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of the climate policy lab at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in the US, said the announcement is “indeed important and the significance is that it happened at all”.

“The fact the two countries could find a way to release a joint statement at a time when the bilateral relationship is so strained sends an energising signal to the COP26 negotiators because it demonstrates that these two major emitters can still work together,” she said.

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Officials from both nations raised the prospect of further cooperation, with US climate envoy John Kerry comparing it to talks between the US and Soviet Union on scaling down their nuclear arsenals during the Cold War.

His Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua said there is more agreement than divergence on climate change between the two sides, adding: “The release of the joint declaration once again proved that the cooperation between China and the US was the only correct choice and by working together, the two countries can achieve many important things that are beneficial not only to the two countries but the world as well.”

But the joint statement omitted one key point – strengthening 2030 emissions reduction targets to keep alive the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rises to less than 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels and trying to keep this down to 1.5C.

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COP26’s draft declaration urges countries to strengthen their 2030 targets by the end of next year, but the US-China declaration just commits them to taking action to keep the Paris Agreement target within reach “including as necessary communicating or updating 2030 NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and long-term strategies”.

Some observers said the joint statement — which helped pave the way for further cooperation between the two countries ahead of a virtual summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden — was a small concession between the two countries and confrontations between them would continue.

Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University, said that since Biden took office in January, the US stance had been “very clear” in urging China to increase its climate ambitions.

“Now maybe partly because of the virtual meeting between Xi and Biden, the confrontation between the two countries on climate change has partly and slightly eased, but in essence, conflicts obviously exist and will persist,” he said.

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Li warned that ongoing confrontation between the two countries would undermine the global momentum on fighting climate change.

“The main challenges for the two countries’ climate negotiations are bilateral relations and their domestic politics,” he said.

“Especially in the US, there is still uncertainty about to what extent Congress will approve the president’s climate actions.

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“The world should know, with the current state of geopolitics, banking on the US and China is not enough. More momentum needs to come from all around.”

Additional reporting by Owen Churchill

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Declaration ‘avoids worst-case scenario’