Summit Is Seen as U.S. Versus China

By JEFFREY BALL
COPENHAGEN -- The political script for a big climate-change conference in this Danish city has U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders flying in later this week to christen a new era of global environmental cooperation. In reality, the summit is shaping up as a pivotal economic showdown between the U.S. and China.


The International Energy Agency projects that nearly all the growth in global greenhouse-gas emissions over the next two decades will come from developing countries -- and that fully half of that total will come from China alone. A central point of contention here is whether China, amid all its newfound economic might, still deserves billions of dollars in annual aid from the U.S. and Europe to help it shift to a cleaner pattern of growth.
China says the answer is yes. He Yafei, China's vice foreign minister, said on Friday that rich nations, which built their prosperity on fossil fuels, are like people who go out for a fancy dinner and then, when a poor guest arrives late for dessert, demand that he pay the same bill for his meal as everyone else.
"It's not fair," Mr. He said. "Whoever created this problem, they're responsible," he said. Although he said the European Union had largely lived up to its emission-reduction promises, he singled out the U.S. several times by name as a country that hadn't done its share.

Mr. He is arguing that not much has changed since the late 1990s, when the basis for the current United Nations-led international framework designed to combat global warming—a treaty called the Kyoto Protocol—was negotiated. Kyoto called on industrialized countries to cut their own emissions and help developing countries with subsidies to promote cleaner technologies, such as energy-efficient cars and solar panels.
But the U.S. argues China no longer deserves special treatment. Though poorer developing countries still need Western help to nurture clean-energy technologies, China is different, Todd Stern, the chief U.S. climate negotiator, told a news conference here last Wednesday. "I don't envision public funds—certainly not from the United States—going to China," he said. "There is no way to solve this problem by giving the major developing countries a pass."
China is willing to clinch a deal at the COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen this week, says China's Deputy (or Vice) Foreign Minister He Yafei, adding that it is all about money transfers and funds from the developed world to the poor countries, which are struggling with the burden of global warming. WSJ's Roman Kessler reports from Copenhagen.
Environmentally speaking, the U.S. and China, which together account for some 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, are the countries that matter most in the U.N. climate debate. So far, the Copenhagen summit has served mainly to illuminate their profound disagreements over climate policy.
Tensions at the summit have flared outside the negotiations too. Danish police detained more than 200 people Sunday during a second day of demonstrations, the Associated Press reported.
The arguments between the U.S. and China reflect the two countries' broader contest for economic power in the decades ahead. Many business leaders in the U.S. worry that efforts to dramatically cut fossil-fuel consumption could raise their production costs and put them at a disadvantage to rivals in a China that is becoming more efficient, but not limiting its carbon-fueled growth.
On two consecutive days last month, Washington and Beijing announced specific emission-reduction targets. The U.S. said it would cut emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, a number broadly in line with climate-change legislation pending on Capitol Hill. China said it would reduce its "carbon intensity"—the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions produced per unit of economic output—40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2020.
Even if China achieves that carbon-intensity cut, the country's total emissions still would surge more than 75% above the 2005 level by 2020, studies project. Michael Levi, a senior fellow specializing in energy and climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations, says studies by the IEA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Chinese government all suggest China was on track to achieve a reduction in carbon intensity in the range of 40% to 45% even before its recent announcement.
The EU and Mr. Obama have proposed that the EU and the U.S. aim to slash their total emissions on the order of 80% by 2050. Mr. He said it is easy to make such long-term promises. "I doubt the sincerity of developed countries in their commitment," he said.

Mr. He said China's environmental pledge, while perhaps less grandiose, is more real. "I would happily go to debate with any person to see whether what China has committed is less or more than another country," he said. "Facts speak louder than words."
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com