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Contention 1 Inherency
Current global climate policies are inefficient, and ineffective
Bretschger May 16 [Lucas: President of the European Association of
Environmental and Resource Economists, Equity and the Convergence of Nationally
Determined Climate Policies, Economics Working Paper Series, May 2016,
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/cer-eth/cer-eth-
dam/documents/working-papers/WP-16-246.pdf p. 1-2 // emb].
There is broad public consensus that the Paris Agreement on climate change constitutes a
milestone in international environmental policy. For the first time in history the world community unanimously
agreed on limiting global warming by adopting specified procedures. Yet, concrete climate policy
measures are not implemented on a global level but formulated in terms of
independent country contributions, which may be called the "bottom-up" approach to climate policy. It
encourages broad policy participation but has been criticized as being
neither efficient nor equitable.1 Indeed, current policy contributions are not
efficient because countries marginal abatement costs are not equalized
and the internationally agreed temperature targets are not reached . This
contrasts with the principles of environmental economics, according to which an
efficient policy would set a unique world carbon price or limit the quantity of world
carbon emissions on an optimal level. Moreover, policy contributions are not equitable because
certain countries are significantly more ambitious in emission abatement than
others, reecting that no general guidelines or benchmarks for burden sharing
have been implemented so far. It is important to analyze the gap between the currently agreed and an
efficient climate policy. Advising governments to adopt optimal policies may be called the "top-down" approach to
environmental policy. It is correct according to theory but risks to ignore all the problems associated with getting
the policy approved by the political process; with global warming this even includes international negotiations.
Hence, the top-down procedure usually misses the transition costs of changing an economy to a new equilibrium.
Difficulties typically arise because of policy induced changes in the sectoral structure and the income distribution. In
fact, climate policy affects the different economic sectors and household types in an asymmetric manner. Public
equity (or perceived equity)
perception is often biased, however, see Sterner (2011).2 Already on a national level,
is a prime concern when crafting environmental policy . Accordingly, green tax reforms and
emission trading systems usually contain a redistribution component favoring those groups which are mostly
affected by policy. On the international level, distributional problems are only compounded. This especially holds
true for climate change and climate policies, which have both a major impact on world income distribution.
Without any policy, less developed and vulnerable countries will suffer
disproportionately.3 With stringent climate policies, carbon-intensive countries have
to bear signifcant costs to decarbonize their economies.
Contention 2 Warming
US-China clean energy engagement is increasing, but it fails to
cover joint investment strategies.
Hart et al 16 Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at
American Progress, Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Peter
Ogden is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, served on the White House
Domestic Policy Council as senior director for energy and climate change and at the
State Department as chief of staff to the special envoy for climate change, Kelly
Sims Gallagher is a Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at The Fletcher
School, Tufts University (Melanie, Pete, and Kelly Sims, "Green Finance: The Next
Frontier for U.S.-China Climate Cooperation," Center for American Progress, 6/13/16,
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2016/06/13/139276/green-
finance-the-next-frontier-for-u-s-china-climate-cooperation/)\\BPS
All told, the United States and China are making significant efforts to reduce domestic emissions. Both countries are
demonstrating strong leadership on domestic climate policy, and that has opened up new opportunities for mutually
The United States and China are already
beneficial bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
collaborating through the Climate Change Working Group , which has launched
multiple collaborative projects under the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, or S&ED; the U.S.-
China Clean Energy Research Center, which brings U.S. and Chinese experts together for joint
clean energy technology development; and the Mission Innovation initiative, which aims to raise
research and development funding across multiple sectors, including clean energy sectors in the United States and
China.13 U.S. and Chinese officials also are engaged in a Domestic Policy Dialogue ,
formally established at the 2015 S&ED, which is a bilateral forum for sharing lessons learned from each nations
there is room to expand these
climate policy experiences to date.14 Going forward,
initiatives. Possible areas for enhanced cooperation on domestic policy include reducing non-carbon dioxide
greenhouse gas emissions, improving measurement capabilities for land-use and forestry-sector climate impacts
and for policies for the power sector, technological innovation, and resilience policy. Mobilizing green financing to
Despite the array of collaborative exchanges that are
meet domestic investment needs
already underway, the United States and China are not yet collaborating in any
significant manner on one of their most important shared challenges: how to mobilize private-
sector investment to achieve their emission reduction goals . Building out a new
clean energy economy requires significant investment capital. Going forward, both nations will try out different
approaches to catalyze those investments.
In thepost-Paris era, the United States and China not only will need to grapple with
domestic green finance challenges but also will play critical roles in determining whether
the world meets the climate challenge through their roles in overseas investment and assistance. Moreover, there
is reason to be concerned that absent policy intervention, Chinas overseas
investments will skew browntoward fossil-fuel-intensive energy infrastructure
rather than greentoward a low-carbon pollution future. This would undermine global
efforts to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement . While this section of
the brief focuses on policies in the United States and China that shape and direct overseas investments and
assistance, it is important keep in mind the central role of the host country to which the investments flow in all of
this. The Paris Agreement provides some very useful parameters in this regard, as virtually every country in the
world has committed to a plan to reduce domestic emissions and, collectively, to the goal of limiting global
United States has ramped up its international
temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. The
climate assistance over the past six years, reaching $15.6 billion of public support between 2010
and 2015. This includes bilateral assistance; public support provided by the U.S.s development finance institution
and export credit agency, which in turn leverages significant additional private green finance; and U.S. support
though multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. As part of this effort, the United States has committed to
provide $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund by 2020 and delivered its first installment of $500 million earlier this
year. The other side of the coin is the extent to which the United States is working to limit its public support for
overseas assistance and investment and public assistance for highly polluting technologies, infrastructure, and
other projects that do not move countries along a path of sustainable economic development consistent with the
Paris climate agreement. On this front, the United States also has made progress, though more work remains to be
done. In 2013, President Barack Obama announced that the administration would not provide public support for
new coal plants overseas except in rare circumstances, a policy now shared by the World Bank and a number of
other countries around the world. The administrations announcement also helped make possible a 2015 agreement
by all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development export credit agencies to eliminate financing for
new coal plants that were not ultra-supercritical by 2017, albeit with exceptions for supercritical coal power plants
smaller than 500 megawatt capacity and subcritical coal power plants smaller than 300 megawatt capacity built in
International Development Association-eligible countries. In addition, in 2014, President Obama issued executive
order 13677, which requires U.S. government agencies to factor climate resilience considerations systematically
into the federal governments international development work. In other words, U.S. foreign assistance programs
should not promote maladaptation to climate change or worsening resilience. In China, the situation is more
complicated and, from a climate perspective, potentially perilous if the necessary policy guidelines are not
China has for the first time demonstrated a new willingness
instituted quickly. On one hand,
to participate directly and publicly in international climate aid efforts by launching
and then pledging 20 billion renminbi, or $3.2 billion, for the new China South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate
Change. China also supports green finance initiatives internationally though the World Bank and other multilateral
development banks. In contrast to these instances of positive investment strategies that promote sustainable
the Chinese
economic growth and development through cleaner energy, adaptation, and climate resilience,
government does not appear to have any overarching technical guidelines or
policies governing its overseas development investments or aid to avoid negative
investment outcomes. Unlike the United States, for example, China does not impose limitations
on public financing for highly polluting projects in other nations, such as high-emission coal
plants. The lack of overseas investment guidelines is triggering concerns that China may continue to make green
investments at home and brown investments abroad. Some observers speculate that this investment inconsistency
pollution-intensive heavy industry sectors are
could be intentional. Coal, steel, cement, and other
suffering from overcapacity in China. Where overcapacity is particularly acute, investing in
heavy industry projects abroad is generally seen as a winning strategy for creating
new export markets to absorb excess production in an era of declining demand at
home. In the open market, firms would react to weaker demand by scaling back production or closing down. If
clean energy policies swing demand from coal to renewable sources, the market should follow suit. In China,
and other heavy industry sectors are dominated by state-owned
however, coal
enterprises with strong local government ties, access to cheap capital, and a tendency to leverage both of
those advantages to keep their factories running regardless of the markets ability to absorb what is produced. One
thing those sectors have done when demand slows at home is to seek new markets abroad, often using state funds
Chinas new Belt and Road program is the epitome of that strategy. Under the
to do so.
program,Beijing is leveraging the nations diplomatic ties to help Chinese companies
secure projects in other nations and then backing those projects through the
countrys $40 billion Silk Road investment fund . Some observers are concerned that
rising overcapacity in Chinas domestic coal sectors combined with unclear
environmental and climate standards for outbound investments will trigger a new
wave of overseas Chinese coal investments that could counteract some of the good work China is
doing at home to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Officials in Shanxi Provinceone of Chinas biggest coal-
producing regionsstate that they are actively pushing coal companies to go out and build projects in Indonesia,
Pakistan, and other Belt and Road nations to draw down the provinces excess coal capacity. If the goal is to
maximize coal consumption in other nations, those investments could pose significant greenhouse gas emission
risks. The Global Economic Governance Initiative at Boston University has compiled a new data set on Chinas
Chinese
overseas energy investments. Based on this data set, it appears that between 2001 and 2016, the
government has supported the construction of more than 50 coal-fired
power plants abroad. A majority of these power plants58 percentuse subcritical coal
technology, which is the most energy inefficient form of coal-fired power plant and
therefore the type that is most carbon intensive. Most of the remainder were supercritical plants, which are
approximately 12 percent more efficient than subcritical plants. One such plant, in Egypt, was an ultra-supercritical
plant, which is the most energy efficient coal-fired power plant technology available. On an annual basis, this fleet
of more than 50 coal-fired power plants was estimated to release 594 million metric tons of carbon dioxide,
equivalent to 11 percent of total U.S. emissions in 2015 and 6 percent of total Chinese emissions in 2014the
latest year for which data are available. If a 30-year lifetime for these plants is assumed, they will emit 17,828
metric tons of carbon dioxide cumulatively, equal to slightly more than U.S. and Chinese emissions put together on
an annual basis. China already is one of the biggest providers of international energy
assistance through the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of
China. Now, it is establishing major new financial institutions, including the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB; the New Development Bank, which is often referred to as the bank of
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, or the BRICS Development Bank; President Xis signature Belt and
Road initiative; and Chinas South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change. In light
of this, guideline clarifications for both bilateral development aid and
overseas investments represent an important opportunity for U.S.-China
collaboration going forward. Not only would clarified policy statements be useful to guide investments and
potentially harmonize standards, but the two nations could also once again demonstrate joint
leadership. China and the United States could collaborate on positive, climate-friendly
investment strategiesincluding on specific projectsand establish information-sharing
protocols regarding these investments . Moreover, both countries could experiment with a wider
range of investment programs, learning from each others successes. The most recent U.S.-China joint
statementon the occasion of President Xis September 2015 visit to Washington, D.C.provides a
promising diplomatic opening for bilateral engagements . During the visit, China
pledged to strengthen green and low-carbon policies and regulations with a view to strictly controlling public
investment flowing into projects with high pollution and carbon emissions both domestically and internationally.
For its part, the United States reaffirmed its existing commitment to end public financing for new conventional
coal-fired power plants except in the poorest countries. Both nations reiterated these commitments at the June
Given this alignment, the
2016 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, or S&ED, meetings in Beijing.
United States and China could work to maximize economic benefits for developing
countries while minimizing environmental, social, and climate risks .
Status quo cooperation is insufficient to slow the rate of
climate change it will become irreversible without greater
cooperation.
Shi 15 - Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health Chinese Academy of Sciences
(Longyu Shi,
The US and China need to turn ongoing bilateral dialogue into immediate
joint mitigation, International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology,
22:1,
25-29
In recent decades, changes in climate, particularly climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, droughts,
floods, cyclones, and wildfires,have caused widespread impacts on natural and human
systems on Earth (Field et al. 2014). Continuous increase in global temperature will increase
the likelihood of severe and even irreversible impacts. Major mitigation actions are
urgently needed to keep the increase in global temp erature within 2 C of pre-
industrial levels (Edenhofer et al. 2014). The United States of America (the US) and the Peoples Republic
of China (China), known as Group of Two or G2, are the worlds two largest energy consumers
and the two largest producers of greenhouse gases (GHGs), together accounting for
more than 40% of the worlds CO2 emissions annually (Foot 2009; Raupach et al. 2010). It is
critical for the largest two emitters to collaborate in a practical and effective way to
control and even reduce global atmospheric CO2 concentrations . While the past
collaborative efforts in climate change have been noticeable, they have not been significant
enough to prevent atmospheric CO2 levels from accelerating upward (MLO 2014) (Figure
1). From this perspective, it is essential for the US and China to act now to systematically
and significantly reduce CO2 emissions . In July 2013, the USChina Working Group on Climate
Change recognized the worsening impacts of anthropogenic climate change and agreed to make joint commitment
in reducing emissions from heavy-duty and other vehicles; increasing carbon capture, utilization, and storage;
increasing energy efficiency in buildings, industry, and transport; improving GHG data collection and management;
and promoting smart power grids (U.S. Department of State 2013). Such an agreement for climate collaboration
USChina
between the US and China represents a renewed landmark event but is not totally new because
climate-change cooperation has a long history that involved many meetings,
forums, agreements, dialogues, and other forms of paper documents. However, these
forms of climate cooperation did not generate outcome that is big enough to
help flatten the undergoing steep curve of atmospheric CO2 . There are numerous viewpoints
about climate cooperation between the US and China from a variety of disciplines. We examined USChina
cooperation on climate change from sustainability points of view. The purpose of this article is to sort out practical
cooperation measures for effective bilateral and multilateral cooperation toward immediate climate change
mitigation around the world.
A third major area of opportunity for ChinaU.S. cooperation concerns the intersection
of climate policy and trade policy. Trade is closely associated with GHG emissions ; it
has been estimated that approximately one-quarter of global CO2 emissions
are from the production of internationally traded goods and services (Peters et al.,
2011).34 Transportation associated with international trade is also a major source of GHG emissions. Climate
change policies can interact with trade policies in a number of ways . On the one
hand, policies that change the relative prices of carbon-intensive goods and
services, such as cap-and-trade programs or carbon taxes or subsidies , may have
an impact on the competitiveness of these goods and services in domestic and
international markets and thereby affect trade flows and the total volume of traded
goods. On the other hand, many trade policies, such as export bans, anti-dumping policies, and tariffs can affect
absolute or relative GHG emissions in various parts of the world. Trade barriers and policies to protect intellectual
property rights can also influence the development and diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. For these reasons
it is important to understand how ChinaU.S. trade might be affected by domestic and international climate policies
and agreements (bilateral, plurilateral, and multilateral) and to explore how trade and climate policies might be
China and the United States, the
coordinated to magnify possible benefits and reduce possible risks.
top two GHG emitters, are also the worlds top two nations in global exports . In 2012,
exports from China and the United States accounted for 11% and 8% of global trade in merchandise, respectively.35
The quantity of CO2 emissions embodied in globally traded goods was estimated to total 5,551 million tons in 2007.
Exports from China were estimated to account for 28% of this CO2 total, while imports to China were estimated to
account for 7%. U.S. exports were estimated to account for 11% of the emissions embodied in internationally traded
goods, while U.S. imports accounted for 18% of the global total (Liu et al., 2015). The two main existing frameworks
for international trade and climate change policy are the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the UNFCCC,
respectively. Each framework already includes some provisions that could help facilitate coordination with the other.
For example, Article 3.5 of the UNFCCC states that measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral
ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on
international trade.36 Nonetheless, substantial potential for conflict exists under the two frameworks. This is
primarily because the WTO and UNFCCC reflect fundamentally different assumptions about the appropriate role of
markets and governments in trade and climate policy. The WTO was designed to promote the liberalization of
markets and the free flow of goods and services across national borders. It adheres to the principle of non-
discrimination in trade and includes various rules to protect intellectual property, address subsidies and
countervailing duties, and discourage dumping. The UNFCCC, on the other hand, is designed to address the global
commons problem of climate change, and the Convention applies the principle of common-but-differentiated
responsibilities in defining the obligations of various countries. Implicit in the UNFCCC is the assumption that
governments should actively intervene to reduce GHG emissions, including by adopting various policies that are
designed to influence the behavior of markets and industries, such as subsidies, taxes, regulatory requirements,
and other measures to advance low-carbon technologies and practices. Some of these policies have the potential to
Recent conflicts concerning Chinese exports of renewable-energy
conflict with WTO rules.
technologies provide notable examples of the potential for future climate-related
trade disputes. In 2011, the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing filed an
antidumping and countervailing duty petition requesting that the U.S. government
impose special tariffs on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells (PV) from
China. In late 2012, the United States imposed punitive tariffs on billions of dollars of
solar panels from China. China, however, defends its subsidies to PV manufacturers as a strategy for
promoting renewable energy production and reducing GHG emissions. Such conflicts between climate
and trade policies illustrate the necessity and opportunity for China-U.S.
cooperation. China and the United States could pursue multiple avenues for coordinating trade and climate
policies. First, the two nations can collaborate within existing multilateral frameworks, such as the WTO and
UNFCCC, where both are important participants and carry considerable weight. More specifically, China and the
United States could initiate reforms so that WTO rules treat environmental goods differently from ordinary goods
and UNFCCC rules account for the trade impacts of climate mitigation efforts and policies. The WTOs dispute
settlement process affords a number of opportunities, particularly in the consultation and implementation phases,
for countries to settle disputes related to environmental policies without causing significant conflicts. Or China and
the United States can agree to settle particular climate-related conflicts without resorting to the WTO Dispute
Settlement Understanding. Second, China and the United States can also cooperate at the plurilateral or regional
level, through groups and agreements such as APEC. However, the Trans-Pacific Partnership of 12 countries reached
in early October 2015 includes the United States but not China. Moreover, the negotiations to create a 16 country
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership include China but not the United States. There may therefore, be
new challenges to ChinaUS cooperation in such large regional agreements. More generally, though, because
regional agreements typically involve fewer parties, they are more dynamic and flexible than the WTO and UNFCCC
and might more readily accommodate new rules related to climate policy. The negotiations for an Environmental
Goods Agreement (EGA), which involves 17 countries, including both China and the United States, provide a good
example of a plurilateral approach. A proposed list of 2,000 products in 650 tariff lines, including wind and solar
products, is currently being negotiated in Geneva; once it has been agreed among the 17 countries, the agreement
is widely expected to be multi-lateralized within the WTO framework. Thirdly, since each is such an important trade
China and the United States have a substantial mutual incentive
partner to the other,
to engage in bilateral cooperation. Fruitful areas for such cooperation include
cutting tariffs on environmental goods, such as wind turbines, solar panels, and
solar water heaters, relaxation of the export ban on low carbon technologies, and
coordinating policies for the protection of intellectual property rights related to
environmental products. Successful bilateral cooperation in these areas can help
both countries gain better access to the technologies and products needed for cost-
effective climate mitigation, and accelerate the process of innovation and
diffusion for green technologies. The prospects for such expanded bilateral cooperation have
been given impetus by the 2014 and 2015 joint announcements by China and the United States. Bilateral
cooperation can also inform future efforts to integrate climate policies and
frameworks with other plurilateral or regional frameworks that address trade and
economic development. For instance, China-United States cooperation can facilitate
efforts underway within the International Maritime Organization to address
international governance issues involving both climate change and trade, such as
international maritime shipping emissions of black carbon and methane . Further, Chinas
new status as an Observer in the Arctic Council will create yet more opportunities for Chinese-US cooperation on
the climate and trade issues on that organizations agenda.