It’s Getting Hot In Here

Last week, the United States and China, the most prolific emitters of carbon emissions in the world, agreed on a joint energy research center, where it will focus on “coal and clean buildings and vehicles” that will seek to “create thousands of [American] jobs,” according the U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who is currently in China working on a collaborative agreement between the two giants of pollution.

This is the first step of a slowly budding partnership between the United States and China that has, to put it lightly, been struggling with compromise for the last couple of months on energy policy and emissions reductions. A month ago, at the U.N. intercessional climate meeting in Bonn, Germany (Bonn II) on curbing carbon emissions ended in a relative failure, without creating anything substantial to prepare the world for Copenhagen.

The United States and China, whom some refer to as the powerful ‘G2,’ have clashed on a number of issues regarding climate change, including the respective degrees to which carbon emissions should be cut. China continually claims that the United States’ cuts on emissions “do not go far enough,” while it firmly maintains that it will not accept caps on its emissions, indicating that it has been polluting for a much shorter length of time. China, home of the world’s largest wind energy market and the largest solar panel manufacturing industry, has poured billions and billions into their energy sector, focusing more on subsidizing government-owned projects rather then contracting with private or foreign companies.This practice, referred to by the World Trade Organization as “green protectionism,” isn’t primarily geared towards making the world a safer and cleaner place to live; it’s a tactic by China to further its goal of dominating the global market in clean energy. It is similar to the 2007 and 2008 yuan revaluations, where China lowered the value of its own yuan to make it more appealing to world markets using the dollar. American and European solar and wind companies are being shut out by state-owned Chinese corporations for new energy contracts, to the point where many have stopped bidding for the contracts, after misgivings that they would “not be seriously considered.”

The United States right now simply can’t compete with this aggressive expansion: the biggest wind farm in the United States currently being built is less than half the size of the six wind farms being built in China right now, all funded by state-owned banks. The Chinese industry also remains insulated from the rules of international trade, as governed by the World Trade Organization, as it refused to sign the WTO side agreement on government regulation. The cost to this approach of domestic mass-production is that the fruits of China’s labor, their wind farms, aren’t as effective: the United Nations and New York Times report that “Chinese-brand turbines produce less electricity because they are more frequently out of action.” The challenge of domestic industrialization and transitioning to a clean energy economy can be at odds, as China balances these priorities.

We need to engage in effective, pragmatic methods of compromise with China: instead of engaging in a Cold War-esque energy technology race that we cannot win, we should talk to China behind closed doors and inform them that a coalition on developing greener technologies would be conducive to both parties. We need to eliminate the air of competition and rivalry that hangs heavily in our collective smog, and instead realize that tackling climate change must be a global effort that needs to be supported by the two most powerful countries in the world.

Instead of continuing to prop up protectionist trade barriers and shovel all of its government money into solely Chinese research corporations, China should work with more American and European companies and grant some of the deserving ones contracts to pioneer and construct new turbines and plants. Conversely, the United States must pass legislation that will effectively allow American developers to receive substantial amounts of government funding.

While a joint energy research center is a good step towards a cooperative approach to tackling the climate crisis, there still remains a pathway where the US and China blame each other for global warming, while independently seeking to corner emerging energy markets. This fall, the Copenhagen climate talks could provide a venue for brokering a cooperative vision for clean energy development and tackling climate change.