SUMMARY - What China accomplished

The short version of my previous post following the end of COP15, on China's role in the climate negotiations:

Up to the last minute, I held out hope that there would be a breakthrough, and during the conference, I was as inclined to lay responsibility on the Americans as the Chinese for the less-than-ideal outcome. It was only later on that I realized the mistake I had committed.

Like many others, I deluded myself into thinking that climate change was the priority for the Chinese in Copenhagen. I had bought into the narrative of a greening China that is committed to meeting this challenge, but is simply constrained by certain economic and developmental priorities. The Obama visit in November, the carbon intensity target, Beijing's public pronouncements leading up to Copenhagen -- these all pointed to a country that was interested in pursuing a serious global agreement.

In fact, if we look at the behavior of the Chinese delegation over the two weeks of COP15, it was more consistent with the pursuit of "national interest" more traditionally defined -- in IR terms. They intended to send a message to the US and the EU about China's status as a rising power: "The world needs China on board for any arrangement to succeed. Our country has arrived on the world stage, and we will not be dictated to by Western powers. In the future, our concerns -- however we define them -- must be taken into account as real constraints."

While the developed nations -- the Europeans especially -- thought the 40-45% carbon intensity cut was an "initial offer" to start the bargaining, it turned out to be a "final offer." It was something the Chinese were committed to doing regardless of the outcome at Copenhagen. (This was quite a clever move. In offering any sort of commitment, the Chinese went beyond their responsibilities under the Kyoto Protocol, while upholding the "common but differentiated responsibilities" framework as interpreted by the developing world.) Because this figure was already on the table, and because they were ready to act unilaterally, the Chinese did not have much stake in whether COP15 succeeded or failed. This presented an opportunity to advance a different political agenda important to Beijing.

Especially after funding for China was taken off the table in Week 1 (humorous at the time when vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei publicly bashed climate envoy Todd Stern. See video here), if the Chinese ultimately didn't care, there wasn't much else the US could offer to sway them. Furthermore, because the waters were so muddy, it would be easy to deflect blame, so Beijing risked very little to send this signal to the US. In the end, power politics outweighed the environmental impulse on the part of the Chinese.

This doesn't mean the Chinese aren't going to do anything about energy at home -- as NRDC China Program director Barbara Finamore has pointed out, they really do see the benefits of becoming more efficient. (Good for industry, good for competitiveness, good for the government coffer.) Thus, they will be serious about implementing the carbon intensity targets, which are by no means easy to accomplish. Tack onto that the updated Statistics Law that promises severe penalties for officials caught altering numbers, and there are some powerful incentives to get industry and government at all levels moving toward the goal.

In the end though, as an individual from Fiji who was also present at COP15 said to me, "The Chinese weren't here to play ball." After all, you don't keep Wen Jiabao out of the "group" negotiations where Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, and other heads of state are present if you are serious about finding a solution. You only do that if you want to send a different kind of message.

The lesson from Copenhagen? Realism bites back.