The White House prodded China on climate change during President Obama’s visit to Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, saying that the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases must participate in international negotiations in “a serious way.”
“We want to look at where do we enlist China in regional and global efforts. Because, again, we want them to play a bigger role. We want them to be a part of international climate negotiations because you can’t deal with climate change unless China is coming to the table in a serious way,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said at a Tuesday news conference, according to a transcript.
China and the United States are the top two emitters of greenhouse gases, which most scientists say exacerbate global warming mainly through the burning of fossil fuels. Obama, in a September speech at the United Nations climate summit in New York, said the onus is on those two nations to set the stage for critical talks next year in Paris, where nations are looking to strike a deal to govern emissions reductions beyond 2020.
“We have a special responsibility to lead. That’s what big nations have to do,” Obama said of cooperation with China during that speech.
Both nations plan to offer a target for cutting emissions past 2020 by March, as is called for under the U.N. negotiating process.
China has been blamed for thwarting previous climate negotiations because it has said capping emissions would curtail its economic growth and keep millions of its residents in poverty. But it said during the September summit that it is ready to be a serious player in the negotiations, a development partly prompted by its air pollution concerns.
Air quality, rather than climate change, may be what’s driving China’s potential engagement in the U.N. process. In any event, China is conscious of the pollution concerns — Chinese officials blocked data from a U.S. embassy feed regarding smog, an air pollutant pervasive in the nation that is linked to heart and respiratory ailments, from getting through to Internet and phone applications, according to Bloomberg.
