SINOGRAPH Copenhagen miscalculation
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - The headlines in many Chinese newspapers are about the agreement on
climate change reached in Copenhagen. Papers displayed a photo of Premier Wen
Jiabao returning from Denmark stating that "China made unremitting efforts at
the UN conference" and that China would keep its commitments, no matter what.
But the articles conceal embarrassment about the difficulties China faces
beyond its expectations in Copenhagen.
Beijing went to Denmark believing it would be able to achieve great success. It
had moved to frame a general agreement with the United States, and it had built
an understanding with some of the major developing countries, namely Brazil,
South Africa and
India (which with China make up the BASIC group).
Certainly Copenhagen was not the disaster that only a few months ago it was
expected to be. It did end with an agreement, whereas in the summer it was
thought it could be a sheer waste of time. However, in recent weeks, there was
a growing sense of a major breakthrough on curbing emissions. These
expectations did not come through. In fact, at the last minute, US President
Barack Obama and Premier Wen had to work almost by themselves on a compromise
that could salvage the conference.
The banana peel on which it all slipped was the issue of verification. The
developed countries were willing to fund the technology transfer required to
cut emissions, but they also wanted to verify that the cuts were actually being
made. This verification issue went directly to the heart of a problem that
already existed between China and the United States.
At present, the Chinese Ministry of the Environment issues reports on Beijing
air quality on the basis of its own findings. Measurements of the air quality
in the Chinese capital are also taken by the US Embassy, which sends its
results through Twitter posts that are blocked in China.
The two sets of data rarely agree. There are differences in methodology - the
particles observed, the timing, the locations, and so forth. The result is that
on many days that are clear and clean according to Beijing, the US Embassy
finds pollution higher than the worst days in US cities.
So with no agreement in place on transparency of verification, and if cuts to
pollution are in any way linked to monetary aid or international accord, the
differences between the observations of China and the United States could
explode in ferocious and public face-losing controversy.
For the Chinese government, now the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse
gases, the environmental war is fought on many fronts.
For years, Beijing sought to launch a "green gross domestic product" for local
and national administrations. The measure would put into context the purely
economic results by accounting for the waste and damage caused by pollution.
But Beijing has not yet been able to push through the program because of strong
opposition from local governments, supported by the industries in their areas.
If anti-pollution standards were rigorously applied today, many factories would
simply shut down, which would mean less tax revenue for the provinces and fewer
jobs for the peasants who leave the countryside in search of fortune in the
city.
The idea that Beijing took to Copenhagen was part of a complicated balancing
act. The Chinese central government wanted a weapon to put pressure on local
governments, with the threat of international sanctions and the carrot of new
technologies for energy savings. The Copenhagen treaty was to be a tool in a
game of cat and mouse between center and periphery by which the pollution
situation would gradually improve.
But it was not possible that such a complex operation could take place under
the eyes of the world, with the Americans and others every day picking on
Beijing and its local governments for this or that misreported data.
On the other hand - and this was the element not taken into consideration by
China - it is also understandable that the US, engaged in a controversial
financial effort (aid to developing countries for emission reductions) to be
paid for with taxpayers' money, would insist on such verification. Washington
ran the risk of being pilloried at home about how US aid money to cut pollution
was wasted or stolen in the Chinese or Indian or African countryside.
It is not known how early the US made clear the importance of verification -
did it give China and the other BASIC countries enough time to prepare for the
demand? Late notice about verification and its importance to the Copenhagen
deal could also have been the result of political infighting in Washington,
where a strong constituency was and is against an environmental agreement and
against taxpayer money being “squandered” on aid to developing countries to
curb pollution.
It might well have been that international and national agendas clashed in the
US, and that some parochial lawmakers did not see the big picture. Yet
likewise, China did not see the importance of domestic thrusts in US
international politics.
Thus China's first slip brought another one. China had first sought a broad
consensus, with the strong support of its BASIC associates. Then, when
everything was crumbling, it left them behind (at least partially) to rush to
patch up a draft with the United States. So it did a favor to the US - which
had for a while felt snubbed at the conference - shortly after the successful
Obama summit in Beijing last month. But other developing countries, which had
been following the Chinese lead, suffered from a last-minute partial about-face
- China preferred to form an agreement with the US than to stand in a close,
united front with other developing nations.
The result is lame on many fronts, environmentally but also politically, and
Beijing realizes it. Now probably, as in Chinese tradition, there will be a
phase of profound rethinking about tactics and strategies for the environment
and environmental policies. And in essence, on these thoughts depends the
entire global environmental policy.
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