Climate Special 11: Cooler Relations (I)

Today, we continue our series on China-US climate cooperation spotlighting Former US Climate Envoy Todd Stern who discusses secret meetings that helped push the Paris Agreement over the finish line, and the necessity of US-China collaboration to overcome challenges in our global transition to a zero-carbon future.

Transcript

Cooler Relations (I)

Today, we continue our series on China-US climate cooperation spotlighting Former US Climate Envoy Todd Stern who discusses secret meetings that helped push the Paris Agreement over the finish line, and the necessity of US-China collaboration to overcome challenges in our global transition to a zero-carbon future.

Since the Copenhagen COP15 in late 2009, Todd Stern, who served as US Special Envoy for Climate from January 2009 until April 2016 and US President Barack Obama’s chief climate negotiator, has played a pivotal role in shaping global climate policy.

On November 11, 2024, less than a week after the latest US Presidential election, Stern spoke with NewsChina to share his insights on the past, present and future of US-China collaborations in tackling global climate change challenges.

While the Trump administration introduces uncertainties to the trajectory of Sino-US climate cooperation, Stern remains optimistic. Speaking with NewsChina, he said that the global transition toward green, low-carbon development will not change and that international cooperation on climate change will continue to move forward.

As usual in this series of podcasts, I’ll be presenting a polished transcript of the NewsChina interview. 

For the first question, NewsChina asked: How has the US’s approach and momentum in addressing climate change evolved? And what progress has been made toward the Biden administration’s goals of a 50-52 percent reduction below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050?

Todd Stern: Obviously, we are in a different world right now for the US, because of the election.

There have been lots of significant domestic policy initiatives in the US over many years. The Obama administration had a whole program on climate change [known as the Clean Power Plan], the biggest part of which was on major new regulation with respect to the whole power sector.  Interestingly, that regulation got rolled back when Donald Trump was elected the first time [2017-2020], but the goals were met. Even though Trump effectively canceled that rule, because there was so much momentum that has started in the economy in general, the goal that has to do with percentage reduction in emissions of the power sector by 2025 turned out to be met in the end.

President Obama also did a lot with respect to the whole vehicle sector, essentially changing the efficiency standard, making it stronger for the first time in many years, which goes by the name of the CAFE standard in the US. 

During the Biden administration, the most important initiatives and progress made on climate change ever is the so-called IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] legislation. This has done a huge amount of good already. The law has made hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of investment in new projects around the country, with new facilities being built. It used a lot of carrots, not sticks, providing very substantial government investment and support, namely through tax credits.

It is a combination of public sector and private sector, with facilities being built around the country, a large number of them being in red states. There’s been big investment because of the IRA, that will affect quite substantially any capacity the Trump administration has to roll back the IRA or try to repeal the IRA. You have a lot of Republican support now for this legislation, particularly for the tax credit part of the legislation, because it creates new jobs, it’s building new facilities, doing important things in the states of senators, congressmen and governors who may be Republican but they like what the IRA is doing. There are many other things as well, such as the legislation and regulations that the EPA has done with respect to power plants and cars, which is quite important.

NC: What do you think makes climate change such an important area for cooperation between China and the US?

TS: That’s something I think was quite important during the Obama years. Thinking back on the overall China and US relationship during that time, there were always issues we disagreed on. It was never an easy relationship, but it was much less strained than it is now.

My very first meeting with my counterpart Xie Zhenhua happened in March 2009, just less than two months after the Obama administration started. It was in Washington [D.C.], and I said to Minister Xie that I thought climate change could become a positive pillar in our relationship, recognizing the overall relationship is difficult in many ways. He didn’t agree or disagree at first. But he didn’t disagree.

Then we started working together quite regularly. I think it was useful that we sort of liked each other right away. We did not make a lot of progress between the US and China on climate change in 2009 in that first year. The COP15 at the end of that year in Copenhagen was quite difficult. But after that, bit by bit we made progress, and then in 2013, John Kerry came in as the Secretary of State, and President Obama started his second term. There was a definite focus by the president on really tackling the climate change issue.

In his second term, he was really determined to do a lot on climate change, and met with President Xi Jinping in June 2013. They agreed on a particular climate change issue – reducing emissions from industrial pollutant hydrofluorocarbons. Then since 2014, we started essentially a secret negotiation between the US and China, to try to set up our two leaders to announce their plans for targets for emission reductions for the Paris Agreement, which would be about a year after. We knew they were going to get together in November 2014 because of a separate meeting in Beijing.

The US-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change was made in November 2014, which included both countries’ emission reduction plans in terms of targets. Also, it included quite important language that the two presidents would work together to remove any obstacles to get the Paris Agreement done.

During the only meeting that President Obama and President Xi had in Paris [which was on November 30, 2015], Xi started off saying that basically climate change has become a “bright spot” in our relationship. That goes all the way back to my first meeting with minister Xie, followed by a lot of engagement.

Kerry was the US envoy for climate change during the Biden administration [until resigning in early 2024] and John Podesta [was] in that position [until January 20, 2025]. I think both of them worked hard with Minister Xie to continue to make climate change a strong element between the two countries. I think there are interests on both sides, and there is some progress, but not as much as we saw before.

NC: What potential impact do you foresee a second Trump administration having on global climate governance?

TS: It will be significant, and I think there is every reason to believe that Trump would take the US out of the Paris Agreement once again as he announced and did in 2017. So that’s almost sure to happen [which, as you listeners know, did happen on Trump’s first day in office]. I think he is generally not going to have any interest in pursuing or pushing climate change action in relation with other countries, China and others.

But I don’t think he would succeed if he tried to repeal the IRA, because there is too much Republican support for it. But he will try to undo some other initiatives that President Biden has taken on climate change. All of that will be negative.

But at the same time, you will see a lot of action in the US, much as we saw at the state and city level, with governors and mayors. When Trump did this last time, literally, within two or three days, there was a group called We Are Still In, a pledge to continue to work on climate change by thousands of people out of states, corporations, cities, university presidents and so forth.

I also think there is a very important thing in respect to climate change worldwide – the incredible surge of development of clean technology. China’s been a leader, but not only China. I think those efforts in solar, wind, electric heat pumps and new technologies to deal with the so-called heavy industry sector will continue going on at fast pace because, at this point, it’s been driven by the economy as much as anything else.

It won’t go on as productively as it would have if [Kamala] Harris had been elected, but there will be a great deal continuing to happen.

NC: What opportunities do you see for future China-US climate collaboration? Can the current momentum of communication and cooperation be maintained?

TS: I think the cooperation won’t happen on the national level, but it will happen on other levels. I said this not only because it makes sense, but also because in the last year or so, I’ve had conversations with Chinese [academics and officials], some of them at very high levels. They said at the time that if Trump wins, US and China would continue to work cooperatively and find ways to connect at the subnational level or at the track-two level, where you have people who were former government officials, for example, having meetings and continuing to share views. I think both sides are going to want to do that. So, I think that would continue. But I expect when President Trump and President Xi meet, President Trump probably won’t bring up climate change issues, but I think there’s going to be a lot of exchange on the subnational and track-two level.

Well, that’s the end of part 1 of our interview with former US Climate Envoy Todd Stern and we’ll conclude it next week. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank out writer Wang Yan, translator Du Guodong, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it and if you did, please tell a friend, so they too can understand The Context!