Obama administration officials and GOP lawmakers sparred Wednesday over a joint United States-China climate change pledge that the White House and environmentalists called a major breakthrough. Republicans said the deal lets China off too easy while forcing the U.S. to make cuts.
Getting China to make a greenhouse gas-cutting commitment after nearly two decades of obstructing climate negotiations is significant, experts and Obama administration officials said. Getting the world’s top two emitters to work in lockstep will help set the tone for crucial talks next year in Paris, where nations hope to develop a framework for governing global emissions beyond 2020, they said.
“By making this announcement today, together, we hope to encourage all major economies to be ambitious — all countries, developing and developed — to work across some of the old divides so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement next year,” Obama, joined by Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Wednesday in Beijing at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.
But Republicans, who have the Obama administration’s climate policies in their crosshairs, immediately bashed the deal that would see U.S. emissions decline at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. They said it would allow Chinese emissions to continue rising for more than a decade — China said its emissions would peak and then decline “around 2030” — while the U.S. would have to enact aggressive cuts to meet its stated goal.
“[T]he United States will be required to more steeply reduce our carbon emissions while China won’t have to reduce anything,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the incoming Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman. “This deal is a non-binding charade.”
And some in climate circles said that China’s announcement largely cements what it had already planned to do — it said in 2012 that emissions would peak around 2030.
Rather, it’s Xi’s commitment that China would get 20 percent of its power from non-fossil fuel energy sources, along with the extension of a bunch of U.S.-China energy collaborations, that could have more impact. It would be globally significant by driving down the costs of solar, wind and other zero- or low-carbon energy sources, making it more feasible for other nations to undertake policies that curb emissions.
For meeting the U.S. marks, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy declined to detail potential next actions during a Wednesday media call, saying the “entire target was based on a thorough interagency review of what was available.”
Whether the U.S. goals are politically achievable is also questionable, as the pace of emissions reductions would need to double between 2020 and 2025 compared with 2005 through 2020.
Much of the legwork to reach the goal Obama laid out might have to come after he leaves the White House. That means reaching the goal would be tricky if the next president is a Republican who doesn’t support the agreement.
“In particular, it’s near-impossible to imagine achieving these goals simply with actions taken during the Obama administration,” Michael Levi, a senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote Wednesday. “President Obama’s administration may have developed and negotiated these numbers, but his successor will determine whether they’re achieved.”
That, of course, also depends on whether the politics around climate change remain the same in 2017. Environmental groups plan to focus in the coming years on ensuring the next president cannot deny climate change, and liberal- and Democratic-aligned outfits likely will bolster their efforts and spending.
“A climate denier cannot hold the White House. We intend to be there to make sure that that happens,” Heather Taylor-Miesle, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, said last week at a press conference.
In the meantime, though, Republicans want to hobble White House climate efforts because they say the regulations harm the economy. Likely incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already said he hopes to attach riders to spending bills to handcuff certain efforts or perhaps to starve environmental programs. Handicapping climate programs and regulations could jeopardize U.S. chances of meeting its carbon-cutting goal.
The EPA’s proposed rule for reducing carbon emissions from power plants, which aims to slash power-sector emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, is already facing opposition from congressional Republicans and industry officials. They are looking to block or restrain the proposal, and the deal with China will only hasten the GOP’s urgency.
McConnell said Wednesday that he was “distressed” by the climate pledge, as he said it underscored that Obama doesn’t want to work with Congress in a bipartisan fashion.
Obama has, for the most part, given up on finding middle ground with Republicans on climate change. He has bashed them for denying or being skeptical that man-made greenhouse gas emissions, largely through burning fossil fuels, drives a warming planet.
The administration has resorted to executive action, the centerpiece being twin rules governing emissions from power plants. Aside from the proposal for existing power plants, the EPA plans to finalize a separate rule in January that would ban building coal-fired power plants unless they used carbon capture and storage technology.
McCarthy said that she was confident Obama would back the EPA if legislation that undercuts the agency’s climate efforts ended up on his desk. It’s unlikely that Republicans would have 67 votes to override a presidential veto.
“I think the president has been very clear in the direction in which he is moving. It has not changed at all. He is utilizing his executive authority where appropriate,” McCarthy said.
While lauding the agreement as a landmark that shows that China is ready to play ball after years of intransigence, some in climate circles openly questioned whether China planned to do enough.
China, after all, is still adding coal-fired power plants. Even Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s climate chief, said last month that China must hit its peak emissions before 2030 to get significant climate commitments from other nations in the next year.
Taking shots at Obama’s climate policies could have implications for the U.S. relationship with China, warned David Doniger, director of climate and clean energy with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He said handicapping U.S. climate efforts would allow China to wriggle out of its commitments and dash months of confidence-building through secret bilateral negotiations.
“Congressional Republicans now must consider, however, that if they undermine the U.S. commitment (by attacking the Clean Air Act, for example), they will now also be undermining an important bilateral relationship with China, and giving China an excuse to renege on its own carbon pollution commitments,” he said in an email.
