How the U.S. Fell Behind China on Climate Diplomacy

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal – "How the U.S. Fell Behind China on Climate Diplomacy"

Hosted by Jessica Mendoza and Matthew Dalton, "The Journal" delves into the intricate dynamics of global climate diplomacy, focusing on the shifting roles of the United States and China. This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of how China has emerged as a leading force in climate action, while the U.S. struggles with inconsistent policies.

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1. Introduction to COP 29 and Global Climate Diplomacy

The episode opens with Jessica Mendoza introducing COP 29, the world's largest annual climate conference, held in Baku, Azerbaijan (00:05). Matthew Dalton, an experienced attendee, shares his anticipation for his fifth COP conference, highlighting the diverse representation and cultural displays from participating nations (00:26).

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2. The U.S. in Climate Diplomacy: A Declining Role

Jessica and Matthew discuss the diminishing role of the United States in global climate negotiations, exacerbated by political shifts. Following the 2016 election, the incoming Trump administration signaled a retreat from climate diplomacy, undermining the U.S.’s credibility on the global stage.

Notable Quote:

• Matthew Dalton (01:26): “The U.S. role will be diminished. The U.S. voice will be diminished... Biden brought the US back in. So that really drains the US credibility in the eyes of the world.”

Matthew elaborates on the anticipated withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under Trump, emphasizing the damage to U.S. credibility due to inconsistent commitments.

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3. China's Ascendancy in Renewable Energy and Climate Leadership

In contrast to the U.S., China has steadily advanced its renewable energy and electric vehicle industries, positioning itself as a "colossus of renewable energy" (01:52). The podcast highlights China’s strategic investments and state-supported growth in green technologies, making it the world leader in sectors like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles.

Notable Quote:

• Matthew Dalton (02:09): “China is the colossus of renewable energy right now. They are not only doing it at home, they're increasingly doing it overseas.”

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4. The Legacy of the Paris Climate Accords

The discussion revisits the 2015 Paris Agreement, a landmark achievement where nearly 200 countries, including the U.S. and China, committed to limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius. Former President Barack Obama underscored the agreement's significance in uniting nations against climate change (04:26).

Notable Quote:

• Barack Obama (04:26): “Nearly 200 nations have assembled here this week a declaration that for all the challenges we face, the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.”

Matthew explains how the agreement sought to balance responsibilities, with wealthy nations providing financial support to developing countries to transition away from fossil fuels.

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5. Reclassifying China: Developed or Developing?

A critical debate at COP 29 revolves around whether China should continue to be classified as a developing country. This classification affects financial responsibilities under the Paris Agreement. The U.S. and European nations argue that China's substantial emissions history and current capacity necessitate a more significant role in climate finance.

Notable Quote:

• Matthew Dalton (12:10): “They [US and Europe] think you've come a long way... You are such a large emitter of greenhouse gases now that you've got to take some responsibility for that.”

The podcast delves into China's resistance to this reclassification, rooted in ideological grounds and its identification with the developing world bloc.

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6. Climate Finance and Future Commitments

Climate finance, the provision of funds by developed countries to support developing nations in their climate initiatives, is a central agenda at COP 29. The U.S. and Europe are pressing China to contribute significantly to this new financial goal, recognizing the immense investments required to transition the global economy to cleaner energy sources.

Notable Quote:

• Matthew Dalton (12:51): “Everyone acknowledges, including the donor countries, that the sums that are required to move the developing world to cleaner energy are huge... China, you should also be providing some money through the UN climate system.”

The potential for a collaborative agreement between the U.S. and China remains uncertain, with Matthew anticipating a challenging negotiation landscape.

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7. Optimism Amid Climate Challenges

Despite the complexities and political hurdles, Matthew Dalton expresses optimism about the global efforts to combat climate change. He believes that limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius is achievable, even if the more ambitious 1.5-degree target remains challenging.

Notable Quote:

• Matthew Dalton (16:27): “I think that limiting global warming to well under 2 degrees is possible. Even if 1.5 degrees looks really hard. I do think well under 2 degrees is... within reach.”

This optimism is underpinned by the significant investments in renewable technologies and the potential peak in China's emissions, signaling a manageable path forward.

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Conclusion

"The Journal" episode provides a thorough examination of the shifting landscape of global climate diplomacy, emphasizing the United States' faltering commitment and China's rising leadership. It highlights the critical discussions at COP 29, particularly regarding climate finance and the classification of China in international agreements. Despite the challenges, there remains a sense of cautious optimism that the world can collaboratively address climate change effectively.

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Notable Quotes Compilation

• Matthew Dalton (01:26): “The U.S. role will be diminished. The U.S. voice will be diminished... Biden brought the US back in. So that really drains the US credibility in the eyes of the world.”

• Matthew Dalton (02:09): “China is the colossus of renewable energy right now. They are not only doing it at home, they're increasingly doing it overseas.”

• Barack Obama (04:26): “Nearly 200 nations have assembled here this week a declaration that for all the challenges we face, the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.”

• Matthew Dalton (12:10): “They [US and Europe] think you've come a long way... You are such a large emitter of greenhouse gases now that you've got to take some responsibility for that.”

• Matthew Dalton (12:51): “Everyone acknowledges, including the donor countries, that the sums that are required to move the developing world to cleaner energy are huge... China, you should also be providing some money through the UN climate system.”

• Matthew Dalton (16:27): “I think that limiting global warming to well under 2 degrees is possible. Even if 1.5 degrees looks really hard. I do think well under 2 degrees is... within reach.”

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Timestamp References:

• [00:05]
• [00:26]
• [01:26]
• [01:52]
• [02:09]
• [04:26]
• [12:10]
• [12:51]
• [16:27]

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

The world's largest annual climate conference kicked off this week. It's known as COP 29, and it's taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan. Our colleague Matthew Dalton is an experienced COP attendee, and this weekend he's headed to Baku. How many of these conferences have you been to at this point?

[Matthew Dalton]

This will be my fifth cop. The most interesting thing about them is it's a place where every country of the world almost is represented. And a lot of times people are dressed in their traditional garb. It's quite a festive and interesting place to be.

[Jessica Mendoza]

What are you packing to go to Baku?

[Matthew Dalton]

I'm just. I'm just packing the boring clothes of a Wall Street Journal reporter.

[Barack Obama]

Suits?

[Matthew Dalton]

T. No. No suits. Actually, no, I'll have a few suits. No ties, though. No ties. That's where I draw the line.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Matthew in his boring reporter outfit will likely see some members from the United States delegation at COP probably wearing some suits as well. But the US Delegation is now seen as a lame duck. Following last week's election, the incoming Trump administration is expected to pull the U.S. away from global climate diplomacy.

[Matthew Dalton]

The U.S. role will be diminished. The U.S. voice will be diminished. It is widely expected that Donald Trump will pull the US out of the Paris agreement for the second time. He did it during the first administration. Biden brought the US Back in. So that really drains the US Credibility in the eyes of the world.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And into that void, a new leader is seen as stepping up.

[Matthew Dalton]

China is the colossus of renewable energy right now. They are not only doing it at home, they're increasingly doing it overseas. Everybody's looking to China right now.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, November 14th. Coming up on the show, how China overtook the U.S. as the world's climate leader.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

China and the US are the world's two largest economies and the world's two largest carbon emitters. So for the past few decades, any successful global climate deal has needed to get both superpowers on board. And the US And China each bring very different perspectives to the table.

[Matthew Dalton]

The US Represents the developed world, the rich world. China represents the developing world, or at least it has historically. And that is the big divide in the UN Climate negotiations. It's developed versus developing.

[Jessica Mendoza]

After years of negotiation, both the US And China finally got on board with a major climate agreement in 2015, the Paris climate Accords. Here's former President Barack Obama in Paris.

[Barack Obama]

Nearly 200 nations have assembled here this week a declaration that for all the challenges we face, the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The agreement was groundbreaking. Nearly 200 countries agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. That meant cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The accords also included financial commitments from wealthy countries like the U.S. the rich.

[Matthew Dalton]

World would continue to provide finance for developing countries to shift away from fossil fuels and to build infrastructure that would protect these poor countries from the effects of climate change. And that goes back to the very foundation of all these climate negotiations, which was that it is the rich world that is responsible for most of the warming.

[Barack Obama]

We know the truth that many nations have contributed little to climate change, but will be the first to feel its most destructive effects.

[Jessica Mendoza]

You were there, right? In 2015. How would you characterize the relationship between China and the US at the time? Like, who was pushing who during these negotiations?

[Matthew Dalton]

So it was the US Pushing China. You know, back then, China was still the largest emitter. They were the world's biggest coal consumer, and they were building a lot of coal burning power plants. The US Was trying to convince the Chinese leadership to at least scale that back somewhat to change their trajectory of emissions. So the dynamic was, you know, the US Was saying, we ourselves consume a lot of energy. You know, we're going to take the lead and cut our emissions. But you China, you have to do more.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Obama considered the Paris agreement a major achievement of his presidency. But less than a year after it was formalized, Trump was elected president for the first time. And within months of taking office, President Trump announced the US Was pulling out of the agreement.

[Matthew Dalton]

In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Then, four years later, Joe Biden became president and the US Was back in.

[Workday Ad]

And as of today, the United States is officially once again a party to.

[Matthew Dalton]

The Paris Agreement, which we helped put together. You know, this kind of going back and forth is not helpful. And people are looking to the US and saying, we can't really depend on you to help us with climate action and to lead this process forward.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And that whiplash continues. Now that Trump is heading back to the White House. He says he wants to pull out of Paris again and ramp up the country's production of fossil fuels.

[Matthew Dalton]

And we will drill, baby drill. We're going to drill, baby drill. He wants to pump as much oil and gas as possible. He has signaled that he wants to open up more federal lands to oil and gas drilling, remove the red tape that exists that limits oil and gas drilling, perhaps environmental reviews that one might normally have to do before you start pumping oil and gas. Very little talk about renewable energy, electric vehicles.

[Jessica Mendoza]

As the US has gone back and forth on its climate commitment, China has steadily grown its renewable energy and electric vehicle industries. And it's now the world leader in both, which means at this month's climate conference, countries are turning their attention to Beijing.

[Matthew Dalton]

So everybody's looking to China, and the question is whether they are going to take that next step and be kind of like an official leader.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Will China step up? That's after the break. Around the time the Paris Accords were signed, China had a serious problem with air pollution.

[Barack Obama]

So it might not seem like it, but it's the middle of the day here in Beijing. The air is so polluted that it's darkened the sky. Pollution levels in the Chinese business capital are the highest they've been this year. The government issued what is known as a yellow alert on Monday, the third highest smog warning.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The accords were an incentive for China to address this issue head on. And there was economic upside, too.

[Matthew Dalton]

China is very good at selecting industries for development, throwing a lot of state support behind them and growing them very quickly. And the Chinese leadership became very interested in shifting away from old manufacturing industries to new industries, the industries of the future.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Unlike in the us, China doesn't have to deal with that pesky back and forth between political parties. They've had one leader in charge for the past decade, and China's president has pushed the government to invest heavily in green energy.

[Matthew Dalton]

China's capacity to build renewable technologies began Growing very quickly. That includes solar panels, wind turbines. It also has started to include electric vehicles, batteries of all kinds, both for electric vehicles and also just batteries that are installed on the grid.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Right.

[Matthew Dalton]

Their clean energy industries were always strong and they became multiples stronger.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So under the Paris agreement, China is considered a developing country, which means not as much was asked of it. But how is China doing in terms of curbing emissions?

[Matthew Dalton]

Yeah, as a developing country, there aren't too many explicit goals, explicit requirements for them to live up to. That's sort of a caveat to what I'm about to say. But generally speaking, they're way ahead.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In 2020, China set a goal of installing 1,200 gigawatts of wind and solar power by 2030. They've already met that goal six years early, and the country has become the world's largest EV manufacturer. China also said it would prevent its carbon emissions from rising by 2030. International climate analysts say that may have already happened. In other words, that emissions in China may have already peaked and are on the way down.

[Matthew Dalton]

So by those metrics, they're doing great. They're doing much better than people could have imagined they could have done. I mean, I think it's given hope to the idea that the worst effects of climate change can be avoided. Now there's the fact is that they need to be doing a lot more if the world is going to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. So China is doing well. They're not doing nearly enough, but the US isn't doing enough either.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Now, as countries gather for COP 29, Matthew says that one of the big questions he's hearing from the US and Europe is whether or not China should still be considered a developing country.

[Matthew Dalton]

One of the things they point out is that it's the size of China's total emissions, not just this year, but going back all the way to the beginning of the industrial era, are getting close to the size of the emissions of a number of wealthy countries. And so they're saying, look, things are evening out. You are such a large emitter of greenhouse gases now that you've got to take some responsibility for that. More responsibility.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Whether China is reclassified could have financial repercussions around the world. Matthew says this year the main agenda item at COP is to decide how much money developed countries will contribute after next year.

[Matthew Dalton]

So that is the task at this COP is to set the target for post 2025Climate Finance. And everybody acknowledges, including the donor countries, that the sums that are required to move the developing world to cleaner energy are huge. And people have been talking about multiple trillions of dollars a year. The US and Europe are saying, we want you, China, to contribute to this new climate finance goal. We think you've come a long way. Since the first UN climate treaty was signed in 1992. China's economy has grown by multiples and multiples. They are now the biggest manufacturer of all kinds of renewable technologies. They are the unquestioned leader in all of that. China, you should also be providing some money through the UN climate system.

[Jessica Mendoza]

How do you expect that debate to play out? Like, what are you expecting to see happen in the next few days?

[Matthew Dalton]

Well, I'm expecting to see the Europeans and the US and Australia and Japan make that argument, say, China, it's time for you to contribute. To some extent, China is going to resist that. And I think the big question is, are the US and China going to get together for some kind of pow wow that seals the deal?

[Jessica Mendoza]

Why would China resist though? Like, why would China resist stepping up into its already kind of de facto role as the global leader on climate?

[Matthew Dalton]

Well, I think there's an ideological reason behind it. They don't. The division in the UN climate world is between developing and developed and China and sort of the under score there, or the background is between the west and the third world or the developing world or the global south, however you want to call it. It's kind of an ideological divide. China doesn't see itself, doesn't want to be seen as a Western country. It's a communist country. It has solidarity with other developing countries. It does hold itself up as a leader of that bloc of the developing countries. So I think China's leadership, they don't want to redefine themselves in that way.

[Jessica Mendoza]

China has agreed to a provision that would allow developing countries to make financial contributions to a new UN fund, but it hasn't made a contribution so far. The country says it will continue to offer assistance to fellow developing countries to the best of its capacity. What strikes you most about the moment that we're in now in the struggle to combat climate change?

[Matthew Dalton]

Well, it's possible we're at an inflection point. It's possible that China's emissions have already peaked, which would be a huge victory in terms of the fight against climate change. It would send a really important signal to the rest of the world that this problem is manageable. You've really got a lot of investment happening and all kinds of new technologies and solar and wind and clean hydrogen that are coming online. The rest of the world is buying into it to a large extent. The progress is not fast enough, but it is happening.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Sounds like there are still some questions outstanding. Some pretty big ones. But, Matthew, you sound kind of optimistic, actually, which I don't think I was expecting.

[Matthew Dalton]

Yeah, I am kind of optimistic. I think that limiting global warming to well under 2 degrees is possible. Even if 1.5 degrees looks really hard. I do think well under 2 degrees is. Yeah, it's like it's within reach.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Well, thank you so much again for taking the time to chat with us. I hope you enjoy COP this year.

[Matthew Dalton]

Thank you, Jess. Appreciate it. Yeah. Apparently I'm told that Azeri cuisine is very good, so.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Well, keep us posted. Send some pictures.

[Matthew Dalton]

Okay.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That'S all for today. Thursday, November 14 the Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.