Beijing poised to take global lead on climate
BEIJING — For years, the Obama administration prodded, cajoled and beseeched China to make commitments to limit the use of fossil fuels to try to slow the global effects of climate change.
Former President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials saw the pledges from both Beijing and Washington as crucial: China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, followed by the United States.
In the coming years, the opposite dynamic is poised to play out. President Trump’s signing of an executive order on Tuesday aimed at undoing many of the Obama administration’s climate change policies flips the roles of the two powers.
Now, it is far likelier that the world will see China pushing the U.S. to meet its commitments and try to live up to the letter and spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement, even if Trump has signaled he has no intention of doing so.
“They’ve set the direc- tion they intend to go in the next five years,” Barbara Finamore, a senior lawyer and Asia director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in New York, said of China. “It’s clear they intend to double down on bringing down their reliance on coal and increasing their use of renewable energy.”
“China wants to take over the role of the U.S. as a climate leader, and they’ve baked it into their five-year (economic) plans,” she added.
Even before the presidential campaign last year, Trump had made statements consistent with climate change denial, including calling climate change a hoax created by China. He has also threatened to formally withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.
Unlike some in the U.S., Chinese leaders have consistently said that climate change is a serious problem and acknowledged that changing the energy mix to move away from fossilfuel sources is important.