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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry via video link on September 1, 2021. Photo: AFP
The Biden administration has tried to use the 26th
United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP26) in
Glasgow, the UK, to show off US leadership. The US has announced many
new initiatives, including the Clean Energy Demand Initiative and the
Global Methane Pledge. It has also announced the First Movers Coalition,
aiming at allowing global companies in the fields of steel and shipping
to adjust their procurement policies to support clean energy
technologies.
Washington has tried to take compensatory actions
for the damage it caused to global climate governance. During the
conference, US President Joe Biden apologized for his predecessor Donald
Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate pact. He said that the US
will reduce emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
But
judging from the recent victory of Republican Glenn Youngkin in
Virginia governor's race, it is becoming harder for the Democratic Party
to win the 2022 mid-term elections and even the 2024 presidential
election. Less than a year after taking office, Biden's disapproval rate
has reached 53 percent. The international community is focusing on the
credibility of Biden's commitments on climate change, instead of how
ambitious they are.
Undoubtedly, the US' domestic divergences on
climate change are still huge. It seems that US climate envoy John Kerry
is always fighting alone. Most Republican senators are against the
Biden administration's policies on climate change, and there are also
different opinions in the Democratic Party. For example, Senator Joe
Manchin III, the Democrat from West Virginia, opposes the clean
electricity program.
As the Biden administration's climate
commitments are being questioned, the US is trying to put China in an
embarrassing position. Biden said that China has "lost an ability to
influence people around the world" in addressing climate change. US
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan labeled China as a "significant
outlier" which "has an obligation to step up to greater ambition."
These
statements will only make Beijing become more averse to Washington.
With its empty and fragile climate change pledges, the Biden
administration has tried to show its "position of strength" toward
China. This will only make the Democratic elites more hypocritical.
China has been making efforts to combat climate change over the years.
It has not only established "dual carbon" goals, but also promised to
raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption to
25 percent by 2030. In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping
announced that China will step up support for other developing countries
in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new
coal-fired power projects abroad.
In the context of rising
tensions between China and the US, China has taken a pragmatic and
low-profile approach to maintaining cooperation on climate issues.
Nonetheless, the Biden administration wants to "decouple" the climate
issue from other issues in the China-US relationship, which Beijing
disagrees. In his meeting with Kerry in September, Chinese Vice Premier
Han Zheng made it clear that addressing climate change is an important
part of China-US cooperation, which must be based on trust.
But
the Biden administration keeps pushing China in its strategy of
competing with China. This has eroded the already weak trust between the
two countries. In particular, a series of provocations by the US on the
Taiwan question, such as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's
announcement that the US would promote the island of Taiwan's
"meaningful participation in the UN system" will cause what Chinese
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi called "subversive and
overall damage to bilateral ties."
There is also a growing sense
in Beijing that the Biden administration is using climate change as a
tool of the great power competition. The Washington Post revealed that
Kerry's contacts with Beijing have been criticized within the Biden
administration. Kerry is seen by some senior US officials as dovish on
China. They have put a lot of resistance to the smooth progress of
China-US climate cooperation. More recently, the US and Europe agreed on
a carbon-based trade arrangement on steel and aluminum.
Making
supply chains in the so-called democratic Western countries such as the
US less dependent on China is one of the key goals of the Biden
administration's China policy. Washington aims to use climate change to
advance this goal. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai sought to put
climate at the center of trade policy and reshape international economic
and trade rules to counter what she called "the race to the bottom"
caused by China's low environmental standards. The White House has also
linked climate change to supply-chain security, saying it wants to make
supply chains more aligned with climate goals.
During Blinken's
recent meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Rome, the US identified
the climate crisis as one of the priority areas of cooperation. If
Washington is really serious about cooperation with Beijing, it needs to
come up with a credible medium- to long-term plan that can be approved
at home. It needs to engage fully with China on international economic
and trade rules and supply chains based on carbon emissions. It is also
important that Washington abandons illusions that it can undermine
China's core interests, such as the Taiwan question, while
simultaneously demanding genuine cooperation. China will continue to
meet its emission reduction commitments, but not according to terms or
at a pace set by the US.
The author is a senior research
fellow at the Charhar Institute and an adjunct fellow at the Chongyang
Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.
opinion@globaltimes.com.cn