US-China cooperation on climate change is key- sets international norm and eases commercial barrier
US News 15
(US News, 12.10.2015, “Why China and the U.S. Have Found Common Purpose on Climate Change,” http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/12/10/why-china-and-the-us-have-found-common-purpose-on-climate-change, HY)
Bilaterally, American and Chinese diplomats have come to see climate change cooperation as low-hanging fruit in an agenda otherwise brimming with strategic tension. From currency markets and competitive free trade groupings to maritime navigation and the rise of China’s military, the relationship does not lack for wicked problems. Climate change used to be just another avenue for strategic posturing, with China clinging to its status as a developing country with little culpability for the problem, and the U.S. justifying its inflexibility through China’s inaction. Those days have passed, at least for now. Beijing and Washington now see opportunity in the climate problem, and view it as a refreshingly non-zero sum game. They recently formed and now cofund the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, with a mandate extending through 2020, and are pursuing technical cooperation on issues from carbon capture and sequestration to sustainable urban infrastructure. These connections feed into growing business ties, manifested most publicly through the annual U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum. Such ties create incentives that are likely to keep climate cooperation from being a flash in the pan. This growing US-China alignment has accelerated because of changes in the direction of international climate change diplomacy. UN-centric approaches have largely abandoned the holy grail of an encompassing and “binding” global agreement that covers an exhaustive range of climate issues. Disaggregated and largely voluntary approaches now rule the day, which allows the U.S. and China to chart their own paths without feeling overly constrained or dictated to by international accords. The U.S. insists upon enhanced international norms and practices around verification, which it sees as essential to prevent the approach of voluntary commitments from becoming a house of cards. The two countries' ability to extend their cooperation to this issue will help determine the Paris outcome. The U.S. and China can likewise drive efforts to lubricate the gears of global commerce and reduce barriers to cooperation in clean energy sectors. Complex intellectual property and trade regulation challenges currently keep clean energy trade from reaching its full potential. These hurdles will not disappear overnight, but Paris is an appropriate forum for developing strategies to address them. More fundamentally, the U.S. and China are in a position to ensure that moves toward the flexible and voluntary do not devolve into reduced ambition and the shirking of loose commitments. If these two economic and polluting behemoths show earnestness and ambition in Paris and beyond, the world is likely to follow.
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