April 22, 2021 | US-China: The Leaders Summit on Climate
China and the United States are forging a relationship based on both competition and cooperation. This week's climate summit tests the resilience of this framework.
Last week’s meeting between US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua offered a glimpse into the potential make-up of US-China bilateral cooperation. This week’s Leaders Summit on Climate gives us a chance to see what multilateralism looks like in an era of US-China strategic competition.
Fighting climate change is likely the only global issue with enough gravity to unify the US and China around a common cause. Climate is number two on the Biden administration’s list of immediate priorities behind only tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some would argue climate change is the only true existential threat to global civilization. China and the United States are by far the world’s largest carbon emitters, combining to produce half of all global fossil fuel emissions. Although US-China relations currently sit at a 50-year low, the world cannot navigate the climate crisis without unreserved buy-in from both sides.
Today in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog, Joanna Lewis analyzed the statement released jointly by John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua after the Shanghai bilateral summit. This joint statement outlined a series of pledges and avenues for cooperation and stressed:
"enhancing their respective actions and cooperating in multilateral processes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement."
According to Joanna Lewis, the joint statement leaves the door open for China to announce more ambitious climate targets in the future:
China’s 14th Five-Year Plan goals and previous Paris agreement targets will make the Paris goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Given China’s contribution to global emissions, its actions have the power to drive or to impede global ambition.
Fast forward to this week’s multilateral Leaders Summit On Climate. 40 world leaders gathered virtually at the United States’ invitation to affirm sovereign commitments to reach peak carbon emissions before ultimately reaching net-zero emissions in the decades ahead.
Turning to China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, President Xi Jinping committed to several key targets. The most important of which centered around its coal-fired consumption reduction targets. Xi pledged:
“China will strictly control coal-fired power generation projects, and strictly limit the increase in coal consumption over the 14th Five-Year Plan period and phase it down in the 15th Five-Year Plan period.”
Several energy analysts tweeted their analysis of Xi’s remarks in real-time. Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air interpreted Xi’s remarks as follows:
“strictly control coal power projects.”
translation: China will continue to add coal power plants
“strictly limit the increase in coal consumption over the 14th Five-Year Plan period and phase it down in the 15th Five-Year Plan period.”
translation: China will reach peak coal consumption by roughly 2025
Green Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) =
translation: same as before
China and the United States are forging a relationship based on both competition and cooperation. This week's climate summit tests the resilience of this framework.
At least on a rhetorical level, both the US and China really do appear to be committed to ensuring the planet remains capable of supporting human civilization in the decades and centuries ahead. However, fixed geopolitical and domestic constraints are the greatest obstacles to guaranteeing mutual alignment on any issue.
The cynic in me feels the United States and China can’t maintain the schizophrenic relationship they’re trying to build. But if there’s an issue that can bring the world’s superpowers together, it’s the threat of the destruction of human civilization. The optimist in me believes this is a shared value everyone can get behind.
We close this week’s notes with the closing remarks of Xi’s statement:
"When people pull together, nothing is too heavy to be lifted." Climate change poses pressing, formidable and long-term challenges to us all. Yet I am confident that as long as we unite in our purposes and efforts and work together with solidarity and mutual assistance, we will rise above the global climate and environment challenges and leave a clean and beautiful world to future generations.
Previous Notes
Additional Reading
President Biden Invites 40 World Leaders to Leaders Summit on Climate (White House)
Today, President Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Leaders Summit on Climate he will host on April 22 and 23. The virtual Leaders Summit will be live streamed for public viewing.
President Biden took action his first day in office to return the United States to the Paris Agreement. Days later, on January 27, he announced that he would soon convene a leaders summit to galvanize efforts by the major economies to tackle the climate crisis.
Leaders Summit on Climate (State Department)
“Unleashing Climate Innovation” will highlight the critical role of technological innovation in achieving a net-zero, climate-resilient economy; the importance of accelerating public and private investment in climate innovation; and the enormous economic opportunities in building the industries of the future. “The Economic Opportunities of Climate Action” will highlight the broad economic benefits of climate action, with a strong focus on job creation. It will explore the economic benefits of green recovery and long-term decarbonization and the importance of ensuring that all communities and workers benefit from the clean-energy transition.
Full Text of Xi Jinping Leaders Summit on Climate Speech:
Does the U.S.-China climate statement mean real cooperation ahead?(Washington Post)
On Earth Day, 40 world leaders will gather virtually for President Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate, following Climate Envoy John F. Kerry’s trip to China last week and the release of the first U.S.-China joint climate statement in more than four years.
What does the statement mean for bilateral climate engagement, given the significant tensions between the two countries?
Biden opens global climate summit: 'This is a moral imperative' (CNN_
President Biden is hosting a two-day virtual summit of world leaders to address the global climate crisis. He committed the United States to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% below its 2005 emissions levels by 2030.
Photo by Guy Bowden on Unsplash