The U. S. and China Announce Joint Emissions Reductions

People in China and the U. S. feel the effects of global warming in their daily lives.  Smog in Beijing and other cities, driven in part by burning coal for electric generation, severely impacts the lives of Chinese citizens.  During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit Nov. 11-14, 2014, China closed factories and gave workers time off in Beijing to reduce emissions while foreign officials were there.   While the average global temperature has risen worldwide since the industrial revolution began, the average temperature in China has risen even more.  The frequency of extreme weather and exceptional natural disasters such as droughts, dust storms, heavy rains, flooding and mudslides in China has risen in recent decades.  Urbanization has increased in China’s coastal cities, such as Shanghai, Tianjin and Hong Kong, making them more vulnerable to inundations from rising sea levels.

American coastal cities such as Miami Beach and Norfolk, Virginia routinely suffer high tide flooding.  According to the U. S. National Climate Assessment (May 2014),

warming has already had adverse effects across the U. S., including heat waves, droughts, wildfires, changes in availability of water, floods, ocean storm surges, extreme weather and climate events and socioeconomic effects.  Worsening of these trends is foreseen during this century.

Global warming from man-made greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), is clearly a problem confronting all humanity, requiring the cooperation of all nations of the world to address it.  Once emitted into the atmosphere, GHGs disperse across the entire globe.  Multinational efforts to conclude a new global warming treaty are currently under way.  Nevertheless, some experts have suggested that agreements between two or a small set of nations could play an important role as well.  Along these lines the U. S. and China announced a joint agreement to address GHG emissions on Nov. 12, 2014, during the APEC summit.

President Obama and President Xi pledged that their countries would significantly reduce emissions of GHGs over the next 15 years, each in their own way.  They agreed that

• the U. S. would lower its GHG emission rates by 26-28% from the levels emitted in 2005, by 2025.  (The U. S. has already pledged to reduce emissions by 17% from the levels of 2005 by 2020.)  This requires an increasing the intended annual rate of reduction of GHG emissions from 1.2% per year up to 2020 to 2.3-2.8% per year between 2020 and 2025.

 

• China’s emission rates, which continue growing because it is adding new fossil fuel-driven electric generating plants to power its expanding economy, will reach a maximum annual rate by 2030 and possibly sooner.  China’s commitment to slow the growth of its emissions was not specified in numerical terms.  As part of this initiative China expects to increase the share of energy derived from renewable sources (solar power, wind, nuclear and hydroelectric) to 20% by the target date of 2030.

 

• The two nations agreed to extend and expand their cooperation in reducing emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigeration, originally announced in 2013.  These substances are far more potent GHGs than CO₂.

These commitments are being made by the two countries that are the two highest-emitting nations of the world, accounting for over one-third of annual global emission rates of GHGs.  The importance of these pledges cannot be exaggerated.

• The commitments pledge major reductions in GHG emission rates by each of the two nations.

 

• The agreement was reached outside the framework of the worldwide United Nations sponsored negotiations for a universal treaty.  Those negotiations, occurring annually for many years, have been fraught with contention and disagreements.

 

• The commitments made by the two largest emitters of GHGs in the world to reduce emission rates should serve as a powerful incentive for other nations to reduce their emissions, whether individually or within the U. N. framework, to reach a meaningful agreement.

There is need for caution as well as enthusiasm in evaluating this agreement.  The U. S. White House put out a press release concerning this bilateral agreement on behalf of Presidents Obama and Xi.  This writer sought and could not find a corresponding English-language announcement on the web site of People’s Daily, the Chinese government’s newspaper, for Nov. 12, nor for Nov. 13, 2014.  However, China Daily, a non-governmental English language newspaper, did report the announcements.  If accurate, this leaves an impression that the Chinese government preferred to downplay or dissociate itself from the agreement even as President Obama embraced it.

This is not a binding agreement between parties.  As the White House wrote, the two parties separately announced goals or commitments to attain their respective targets by their respective dates.  President Obama has only two years left in office, so that most of the target conditions will have to be fulfilled by his successor(s).  A future president could just as well decide against following through on the present commitments.  He also faces a hostile Congress which may interfere with his intentions. 

President Xi heads a central government, so it may be easier for him to follow through on his commitments (see below, discussion on Five Year Plans).

The agreement imposes very different constraints on the two governments.  The American commitment is for numerically stated, and verifiable, reductions in emission rates.  The Chinese commitment, however, fails to specify a numerical standard for the extent of its reduction in emission rates.  The announcement states only that China will reduce the growth rate of its annual emissions until a maximum rate is achieved by 2030, or perhaps earlier.  Presumably China’s emission rate will actually begin falling after 2030, but this also is not stated.  (A common objective among climate scientists and policymakers, in order to keep the world’s global average temperature rise below 2ºC (3.6ºF), is that global emission rates have to be cut by 80% or more by 2050 below early 21^st century levels.)

China’s Five Year Plans (FYPs) have already programmed in significant changes.  China’s national development is set forth in successive FYPs, which are assembled by China’s central government.  According to the report “Delivering Low Carbon Growth – A Guide to the 12th Five Year Plan”,  the proportion of energy provided by non-fossil fuel sources is to be 11.4% in the 12^th FYP (2011-2015) and 15.0% in the 13^th FYP (2016-2020).  So it is seen that much of the goal in November’s bilateral agreement is already planned, leaving an additional 5% of total energy to be provided by non-fossil fuel sources in the ten years leading to 2030 in order to reach the specified 20% objective.

China Daily reported that the bilateral agreement used earlier language that has always distinguished between developing and developed countries.  The wording was first presented in the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change twenty years ago, namely, that nations of the world address climate change “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.   This phrasing reflects the concerns that “the developed countr[ies] should take the lead in combating climate change” and that the “specific needs and special circumstances of developing countr[ies]…should be given full consideration”.  

China Daily reported that in the bilateral agreement "the two countries are committed to reaching an ambitious 2015 agreement that reflects the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”  In other words, developing countries such as China continue to stress equity in insisting that they be given the same opportunity to develop, using fossil fuels for energy, that industrialized countries have benefited from for more than a century.  At the same time they point to the responsibility of those developed countries now to limit their emissions because of their advanced economic status.  These attitudes stress hindsight or past history.

Developed countries such as the U. S., on the other hand, presumably consider equity as supporting a policy that, since developing countries are now the ones expanding the world’s burden of atmospheric GHGs, they should bear the “differentiated responsibility” of constraining their emissions. Whereas China was an impoverished developing country in the early 1990s, it is now the world’s largest emitter of GHGs and a powerful economic force.  One can legitimately question whether developed countries still have to acknowledge “differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” of flourishing countries such as China.

Conclusion

U. S. President Obama and China’s President Xi announced bilateral objectives of differing scope and timing to place their nations on paths toward significant reductions in GHG emission rates.  The joint objectives mark the first time the two nations of the world with the highest emission rates agree on the importance of mitigating emission rates; the result will be highly significant for the climatic health of our planet.  Citizens of both countries, indeed of all the world’s nations, will benefit from this undertaking.  It creates an important incentive for achieving agreement on mitigating emissions worldwide, resulting from U. N.-sponsored negotiations over the coming year.

© 2014 Henry Auer

Americans Support Expansion of Renewable Energy, Surveys Show

Summary.  Public opinion surveys in the U. S. show that more than two-thirds currently think there is solid evidence that the earth is warming.   The surveys find the public supports expansion of renewable energy.  A majority of Republicans among survey respondents are included in this supporting class.  One survey reports that Republicans believe their elected representatives do not “care much about” what they think about climate change. 

Policymakers should respond to poll results such as these and coalesce around efforts to expand renewable energy.  Many policy justifications exist to support this position.

 

Introduction.  Climate scientists from all around the world overwhelmingly agree that manmade greenhouse gases have contributed significantly to increased long-term global average temperatures over the last several decades.  They foresee a future by the end of this century, and beyond, having profoundly higher temperatures and consequent harmful impacts on human welfare and planetary climate conditions.  The substance of these projections of future harms has not changed since the first report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990. 

Policymakers around the world, especially those representing countries that are major emitters of greenhouse gases, have been unable to arrive at an agreement for a meaningful reduction in these emissions.  Nevertheless, in the U. S. the public has gained increased appreciation that global warming is an issue that needs to be addressed.  This post summarizes some recent public opinion surveys of attitudes toward global warming.

Pew Research Center surveys over the first months of 2013 are summarized here.  Their survey in February 2013 found that 69% of Americans think there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature has been increasing in recent decades.  The trend for this question since 2006, as well as for the question of whether warming arises mostly because of human activity, is shown in the graphic below, which includes survey results from March 2013.

 

Survey results over 2006-2013 showing the percent of Americans thinking that the earth is warming (top, bronze) and that the warming is due to human activity (bottom, gold). 

Source: Pew Research Center; http://www.pewresearch.org/2013/04/02/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/.

 

The graphic above shows that American public opinion bottomed in 2009-2010, both on whether the earth is warming, and on whether warming is due to human activity, and has increased significantly since then.  American belief that humans have caused global warming has consistently been at least 20% lower than agreeing that warming is occurring at all.

There is a dependence of attitudes about global warming in the U. S. on affiliation with a political party or outlook.  The Pew survey in March 2013 shows that U. S. Democrats (more liberal) are far more likely than U. S. Republicans (more conservative) to agree that global warming is occurring, and that it is due to human activity (see the table below).

 

Dependence of attitudes about global warming on political identification.  “Rep”, Republican; “Dem”, Democrats; “Ind”, politically independent or unaffiliated.

Source: Pew Research Center;  http://www.pewresearch.org/2013/04/02/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/.

 

There is also a stark division by political affiliation about whether Americans regard global warming to be a problem, according to a Pew survey from October 2012.  A majority of Democrats believe it is a very serious problem, but only one-fifth of Republicans do.  Conversely, only 1 in 6 Democrats believe global warming to be either not too serious a problem or not a problem at all, whereas more than half of Republicans fall in these two groups.

 

Gallup Poll results show that there is strong support for renewable energy in the U. S. across the political spectrum.  A survey of 1,022 subjects in all 50 states gave results having a 95% confidence level with a ±4% error.  Respondents were given a choice of placing more emphasis, less emphasis, or about the same emphasis, as currently done for supplying our energy needs from various sources.  They chose “more emphasis” by large margins for solar power (76%), wind (71%), and natural gas (65%), with much lower preferences for more emphasis for oil, nuclear energy and coal.  Breakdowns by party affiliation in this survey are shown in the following table.

Source: Gallup poll, March 2013. http://www.gallup.com/poll/161519/americans-emphasis-solar-wind-natural-gas.aspx

 

It is seen that Republicans strongly support more emphasis on solar power, wind, and natural gas, but also oil.  About half of Republicans further support more emphasis on nuclear power and coal.  Democrats, on the other hand, overwhelmingly support more emphasis on solar power and wind energy, with less than one-third supporting oil, nuclear power or coal.

 

Climate Change Communication project.  George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication and Yale University’s Project on Climate Change Communication have been collaborating on the attitudes of Americans on global warming over the past several years.  They released a new report on April 2, 2013 providing results of a survey of U. S.Republicans on the subject of climate change.  938 people who had identified themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents in a previous survey taken in Fall 2012 were called back in January 2013 for this survey; 77% of those agreed to participate.  Important findings are summarized here.

More than half of Republicans surveyed think that climate change is happening.  52% agreed, 26% did not agree, and 22% didn’t know.

A large majority supports expanded use of renewable energy.  These Republicans support much more (51%) or somewhat more (26%) use of renewable energy.  (In the survey, “renewable energy” consists of solar, wind and geothermal energy.)  Most of these (69%) felt measures should be started “immediately” toward this objective.

The survey also probed this issue from the converse perspective. 51% of Republicans indicated that the U. S. should use fossil fuels (i.e. coal, oil and natural gas) somewhat less (31%) or much less (21%) than today.  Only 22% favored increased use of fossil fuels, giving a ratio of about 2.5 to 1 favoring less use. 

Perceived benefits of reducing use of fossil fuels outweighed perceived “costs”.  (As seen below, “costs” does not refer to monetary costs, but to social and economic factors.)  Respondents could choose more than one from among 9 listed benefits and 6 listed costs.  The three benefits chosen most frequently, among 538 of those surveyed, were “help free us from dependence on foreign oil”, “save resources for our children & grandchildren”, and “provide a better life for our children & grandchildren”.  The benefit listed as “limit climate change” was next to last.  The two highest perceived costs chosen among 477 of respondents were “lead[ing] to more government regulation” and “caus[ing] energy prices to rise”.

After having weighed the benefits, costs, and other factors 64% of Republicans think “we SHOULD take action to reduce our fossil fuel use”, whereas 35% think “we SHOULD NOT take action” (capitalization in the survey as reported).

Perceptions of politicians’ responsiveness to people.  The Republican respondents showed an apparent skepticism or alienation concerning their ability to influence political decisions.  More than half  “do not think elected officials care much about what people like me think about climate change”, and think “people like me don’t have any say in what the government does about climate change”.  Only 8% think “elected officials pay a lot of attention to the views of people like me” on this issue.

 

Analysis

 

Surveys from three different polling organizations are summarized here.  Polling results can be partly influenced by the way that poll queries are phrased.  Yet the poll results reinforce one another quite consistently, making clear that overall they reflect the thoughts and feelings of the American public.

 

Americans favor expanding support and/or development of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal energy.  The reasons given for this widened support cover a broad range, including achieving energy independence and expansion of a new economic sector with its attendant growth in job opportunities.

 

In the U. S. Congress, Republicans have opposed development of renewable energy.  There may be many factors contributing to the development of policy positions among legislators, including responsiveness to the wishes of constituents, sensitivity to economic interests, and development of support for retaining elected office.  In this regard it is significant that the survey results from all three polling organizations show that respondents who identify themselves as being avowedly Republican or favoring Republican positions strongly support development of renewable energy sources.

 

Among Republicans responding to the Climate Change Communication survey more than half think climate change is happening, and three-quarters of them support more or somewhat more use of renewable energy.  After weighing perceived benefits vs. perceived socioeconomic costs about two-thirds of Republicans surveyed think we should act to reduce use of fossil fuels. The Pew and Gallup surveys found comparable support among Republicans.  Anecdotally, the New York Times reports on April 9, 2013 that the Republican mayor of Lancaster, CA, a desert community with plenty of sunshine, is undertaking to install sufficient solar photovoltaic capacity to generate more electricity than his city needs.

 

The Climate Change Communication project found that of the Republicans surveyed more than half felt alienated or ignored by their elected representatives.  If this is a valid representation of attitudes held by the officials, it suggests they pay more attention to other considerations than to taking the opinions of their constituents into account.

 

Conclusion.  Polling shows that the fraction of Americans that thinks global warming is occurring, and that human activity is a cause, is growing in recent years.  The majority of Americans think growth of renewable energy sources should be supported.  More than half of Republicans, and in certain surveys many more, are included among those supporters.  Many reasons, most having to do with national security and economic factors, are identified for this support.  Explicit identification of global warming or similar environmental concerns is low on this list.  Elected officials who are our policymakers at the national level should pay heed to survey results such as these.  They should support expansion of renewable energy sources for all the reasons mentioned in the Climate Change Communication survey.

 

 © 2013 Henry Auer