Breaking the Suicide Pact: U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change, March, 25, 2008
In Breaking the Suicide Pact: U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change, William Chandler, director of the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program, identifies practical, non treaty-based approaches both countries could take to cut their carbon dioxide emissions across economic sectors—with little financial impact.
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Published on Mar 25, 2008
WASHINGTON, Mar 25—The United States and China must make accommodations to curb greenhouse gas emissions if both countries are to break their “suicide pact” of self-destructive, energy-using behavior. Together they produce 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet both countries demand that the other take responsibility for climate change, meanwhile the threat of environmental disaster grows. For the first time, China is considering an emissions target while half of U.S. states have set their own targets—the time for a deal is now.
In Breaking the Suicide Pact: U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change, William Chandler, director of the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program, identifies practical, non treaty-based approaches both countries could take to cut their carbon dioxide emissions across economic sectors—with little financial impact. He argues that China and the United States should work together to set individual, national goals and achieve them through domestically enforceable measures and international agreements that prevent either nation from taking advantage of steps taken by the other.
Key Recommendations for U.S.-China Cooperation:
Eliminate subsidies that discourage energy efficiency.
Provide tax breaks for investment in efficiency and low-carbon energy and impose tax penalties on high-carbon energy.
Make climate cooperation integral to trade policy, such as jointly setting production standards to limit the energy used to manufacture exports.
Create partnerships between Chinese provincial officials and leaders in U.S. states on the forefront of climate change prevention to improve implementation of innovative energy policies.
Promote market penetration of existing carbon emission reduction technologies and encourage development of new technologies by linking American laboratories more closely to Chinese markets to share research and development costs.
Encourage banks in China to remove the regulatory cap on interest rates for energy-efficiency investments.
“U.S.–China collaboration poses no threat to the climate leadership of any region or nation or to global cooperation. It is a complement, not a challenge, to existing and planned emissions cap and trade systems. This act of mutual self-preservation would help the United States and China to avert climate disaster and the eventual sanctions of other nations if they do not act, and lay the groundwork for successful global action,” concludes Chandler.
William Chandler is the director of the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program. Chandler has spent over 35 years working in energy and environmental policy and was a lead author for the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is president of Transition Energy, co-founder of DEED China, a joint venture building waste heat recovery power plants in China, co-founder of the Moscow-based Center for Energy Efficiency, and founder and former director of Advanced International Studies at the Joint Global Change Research Institute. Chandler received the 1992 Champion of Energy-Efficiency Award from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy for his work. In 1999, he received the first Global Climate Leadership Award from the International Energy Agency. He has authored or co-authored ten books which have been favorably reviewed by scholarly and popular critics and translated into several foreign languages.
The Carnegie Energy and Climate Program aims to provide leadership in global energy and climate policy. The program integrates thinking on energy technology, environmental science, and political economy to reduce risks stemming from global change and competition for scarce resources. It will create new products and collaborate with Carnegie experts around the world to provide information and change the way policy makers think about energy policy.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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