What Would a China-Led Global Climate Policy Look Like?

What Would a China-Led Global Climate Policy Look Like?
A passenger airliner flies past steam and white smoke emitted from a coal-fired power plant, Beijing, Feb. 28, 2017 (AP photo by Andy Wong).

Stories abound in the U.S. press about the hollowing out of the State Department. Employees at Foggy Bottom have relocated from work desks to cafeteria tables to spend their newfound free time over paperbacks and coffee. But there is one table that U.S. diplomats could find themselves absent from this fall—the negotiating table at the next international climate meeting in Bonn in May.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s skepticism of climate change guarantees that his administration will cede leadership on the issue. “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Budget and Management, said last month. Trump has already scrapped the Clean Power Plan, the U.S. emissions-reduction pledge under the Paris Agreement, and is expected to renege on U.S. financial commitments to fund innovative energy technologies and help developing countries mitigate climate change.

The immediate effects of this U.S. retrenchment are worrying, but the long-term cost of abdicating climate leadership will be far more consequential. American negotiators were essential to building international consensus around the Paris Agreement. By walking back U.S. climate commitments, Trump offers Chinese President Xi Jinping the opportunity to pick up the baton. Although Beijing had previously resisted international efforts to establish binding carbon emission limits, it recently made significant efforts to limit its emissions and is now urging the United States to uphold its climate commitments—instead of the other way around.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review