U.S., China commit to global climate pact

On G-20 sidelines, two urge others to sign on

HANGZHOU, China — President Barack Obama and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Saturday sealed their nations’ participation in last year’s Paris climate change agreement, hailing their new era of climate cooperation as the best chance for saving the planet.

At a ceremony on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit, Obama and Xi, representing the world’s two biggest carbon emitters, delivered a series of documents to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The papers certified that the U.S. and China have taken the necessary steps to join the Paris accord that set nation-by-nation targets for cutting carbon emissions.

“This is not a fight that any one country, no matter how powerful, can take alone,” Obama said of the pact. “Some day, we may see this as the moment that we finally decided to save our planet.”

Xi said he hoped other countries would follow suit and advance new technologies to help them meet their targets.

“When the old path no longer takes us far, we should turn to innovation,” Xi said.

The Paris agreement, named for the site of the United Nations summit where it was agreed upon in December, reflects each nation’s individual promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the ultimate goal of limiting global temperature rise.

Though the final pledge fell short of the target of 2 degrees Celsius, it calls for signatories to regularly report on and revise targets in the interest of further progress, as Obama has said.

Backed by almost 200 nations, the agreement takes effect when 55 countries representing 55 percent of the world’s emissions agree to it. Only 23 other nations, accounting for about 1 percent of global emissions, had done so before the U.S. and China joined in ratification. Together, the two nations emit nearly 40 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide, and thus their pledges represent the most significant stride yet toward the deal’s implementation.

To build momentum, Washington and Beijing set a 2030 deadline for China’s emissions to stop rising and announced their “shared conviction that climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity.” The U.S. has pledged to cut its emissions by at least 26 percent over the next 15 years, compared with 2005 levels.

Under the Paris agreement, countries are required to set national targets for reducing or reining in their greenhouse gas emissions. Those targets aren’t legally binding, but countries must report on their progress and update their targets every five years.

Xi said he acted after China’s legislature voted Saturday to formally enter the agreement. In the U.S., Senate ratification is not required because the agreement is not considered a formal treaty.

The U.S.’ involvement in the Paris agreement does not, however, ensure it will be able to follow through on its promise. The primary mechanism to achieve that, the Clean Power Plan, is under legal challenge. In February, the Supreme Court issued a temporary stay of the plan.

Li Shuo, Greenpeace’s senior climate policy adviser, called Saturday’s declarations “a very important next step.”

If the deal clears the final hurdles, he said, “we’ll

have a truly global climate agreement that will bind the two biggest emitters in the world.”

MARITIME DISPUTES

The meeting of the minds on climate change, however, hasn’t smoothed the path for other areas of tension between Washington and Beijing.

The U.S. has criticized China over cyberhacking and human rights and voiced increased exasperation with Beijing’s growing assertiveness in key waterways in the region. Recently, the U.S. has urged China to accept an international arbitration panel’s ruling that sided with the Philippines in a dispute over claims in the South China Sea.

China views the South China Sea as an integral part of its national territory. The U.S. doesn’t take positions in the various disputes between China and its Asian neighbors, but it’s concerned about freedom of navigation and wants conflicts resolved peacefully and lawfully.

Meeting with Xi after Saturday’s announcement, Obama said thornier matters would be discussed. He specifically cited maritime disputes, cybersecurity and human rights, though the president didn’t elaborate during brief remarks in front of reporters at the start of the meeting.

Over several hours of talks, the White House said, Obama told Xi that the U.S. would keep monitoring China’s commitments on cybersecurity. The leaders also had a “candid exchange” over the arbitration case between China and the Philippines, the White House said.

The ceremony opened what is likely Obama’s valedictory tour in Asia. The president stepped off Air Force One onto a red carpet, where an honor guard dressed in white and carrying bayonets lined his path. A girl presented Obama with flowers, and he shook hands with officials before entering his motorcade.

But the welcome didn’t go smoothly. A Chinese official kept reporters and some top White House aides away from the president, prompting a

U.S. official to intervene. The Chinese official then yelled: “This is our country. This is our airport.”

Throughout his tenure, Obama has sought to check China’s influence in Asia by shifting U.S. military resources and diplomatic attention from the Middle East. The results have been mixed.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal the White House calls a cornerstone of the policy, is stuck in Congress. Obama planned to use the trip to make the case for approval of the deal before he leaves office in January.

Some of the nations that signed on to the trade pact, particularly Japan, have made political sacrifices by opening markets in order to meet the standards demanded by the United States. Failure to pass the trade pact, Asian diplomats and analysts said, would leave them feeling burned.

“The Japanese, living in an uncertain world, depending on an American nuclear umbrella, will have to say on trade: ‘The Americans could not follow through,’” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore said during a recent visit to Washington, standing next to Obama. “If it’s a matter of life and death, whom do I have to depend on?”

Obama and his chief trade negotiator, Michael Froman, have said they understand the stakes.

“We are one vote away from cementing our leadership in Asia or ceding it to China,” Froman said in an interview in Beijing. “I’m not sure Congress wants to hand the keys to the castle to China.”

STEEL-GLUT CONCERNS

On the eve of the G-20 economic summit in China, held for representatives of industrial and emerging-market nations, the global steel glut was shaping up as a hot-button issue, securing a mention in a draft of their communique.

The communique draft shows that overcapacity in steel — for which China has received criticism — remains on the radar for the world’s biggest economies months after it was raised in the discussions

at a G-7 summit in Japan.

The wording of the G-20 communique is not final and could be altered before its release, according to two officials involved, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. Bloomberg News saw a copy of the planned statement on Saturday morning.

“We recognize that the structural problems, including excess capacity in some industries, exacerbated by a weak global economic recovery and depressed market demand, have caused a negative impact on trade and workers,” G-20 leaders will say, according to the communique. “We recognize that excess capacity in steel and other industries is a global issue which requires collective responses.”

The statement for the Hangzhou meeting echoes one from a July G-20 gathering of finance ministers that expressed concern about the outlook for global growth. It warns that growth is still weaker than is desirable and warns against a protectionist mood on trade and investment. China has recently found itself stymied on potential investments in the U.K. and Australia.

China has said the steel issue is one of demand rather than supply. Cutting overcapacity requires global action, China Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said Friday at a briefing in Hangzhou. Fewer accusations and more cooperation on the matter would benefit the global economy, Zhu said, adding that China had been first among the major economies to take action in reducing overcapacity.

The global flood of Chinese steel is stoking trade tensions, and U.S. lawmakers have asked Obama to raise the issue with his hosts at the summit. Xi has ordered as much as 150 million metric tons, or about 13 percent, of annual capacity to shut by 2020 as part of the Communist Party’s plans to address industrial overcapacity amid slowing demand for basic materials. China makes about half of the world’s steel.

Earlier this year, 25 nations, including the U.S., said they were unable to persuade China to take greater accountability for the overcapacity in steel production. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for U.S. president, vowed in a June speech outside Pittsburgh that if he is elected, his administration will ensure “American steel for American infrastructure.”

The draft communique warns that financial market volatility is a downside risk to growth and says G-20 members will use all tools available to boost their economies. Monetary policy alone cannot spur balanced growth, the statement says, another nod to the potential need for greater fiscal action on the part of governments.