#China and U.S. Hit Strident Impasse at Climate Talks
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China and U.S. Hit Strident Impasse at Climate Talks
By JOHN M. BRODER and JAMES KANTER
Published: December 14, 2009
COPENHAGEN — China and the United States were at an impasse on Monday at
the United Nations climate change conference here over how compliance
with any treaty could be monitored and verified.
China, which last month for the first time publicly announced a target
for reducing the rate of growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, is
refusing to accept any kind of international monitoring of its emissions
levels, according to negotiators and observers here. The United States is
insisting that without stringent verification of China’s actions, it
cannot support any deal.
The stalemate came on a day of public and private brinkmanship as the
talks moved into their second and final week. Earlier Monday, a group of
poor nations staged a brief walkout from the bargaining table, and a
chaotic registration system left thousands of attendees freezing outside
the conference hall and forced the temporary closing of the subway stop
near the Bella Center, where the meetings are being held.
The slow progress of the climate negotiations could pose problems later
in the week, when the heads of government begin arriving. It is not
customary for so many technical, financial and emotional issues to be
unsettled when national leaders sit down to negotiate an agreement.
President Obama and other world leaders have said that they hope to reach
some interim agreement at the Copenhagen talks, but that a binding global
accord is not likely to be completed until next year.
Negotiators for the United States and China have been trading public
accusations in recent days and making little progress in negotiations on
the critical issue of treaty compliance.
Chinese negotiators have said little during formal negotiation sessions
here, where they have been working in partnership with the developing
countries. They have made clear that they do not expect money from the
industrial powers to help make the shift to a more energy-efficient
economy.
But they will not accept any outside monitors to ensure that they are
indeed making the changes that they have promised to reduce the amount of
carbon dioxide and other pollutants emitted per unit of economic output.
“I think there’s no doubt that China, when it says 40 to 45 percent
reduction in energy intensity, is serious about that,” said Ed Miliband,
the British secretary of state for energy and climate change. The more
challenging hurdle, he said, is finding a way that China can prove to the
outside world that it is reducing its emissions by the amount it claims.
He Yafei, the Chinese vice foreign minister, said China’s laws would
guarantee compliance.
“This is a matter of principle,” even if it scuttles the talks, he said
in an interview with The Financial Times.
American officials said that despite nearly a year of negotiations with
the Chinese, there were still fundamental problems that may not be fixed
here before the meetings end. The United States says it believes that the
Chinese emissions target is too low — a top American official called it
“disappointing” the day it was announced. Without a stronger emissions
commitment and an agreement to international monitoring by China,
Congress is unlikely to approve a tough new domestic climate regime for
the United States.
“If China or any other country wants to be a full partner in global
climate efforts, that country must commit to transparency and review of
their emissions-cutting regime,” said Representative Edward J. Markey,
Democrat of Massachusetts and a co-sponsor of the climate and energy bill
that passed the House in June. “Without that commitment, other
governments and industries, including those in America, will be hesitant
to engage with those countries when they try to partner on global
warming.”
And the Chinese refusal to accept verification measures could also lead
to calls for punitive tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United
States. The House bill allows for the imposition of tariffs on goods from
countries that do not constrain their carbon output. A group of 10
Democratic senators wrote to Mr. Obama two weeks ago warning that the
Senate would not ratify any treaty that did not protect American industry
from foreign competitors who do not have to meet global warming emissions
limits.
That threat could, paradoxically, help drive the Chinese to cement a deal
here, an American official said. “Their No. 1 motivation is to avoid
border tariffs,” the official said.
Barbara Finamore director of the China program for the Natural Resources
Defense Council, said the top Chinese leadership was pursuing a cautious
and calculated strategy as the talks near a decisive phase this week.
“They’re going to wait until the last hour of the last day and just as
the other side is walking out they’ll say, ‘Hey, come back.’ Just as they
do every day in every market in China,” Ms. Finamore said. “That’s why
they’re the best negotiators in the world.”
As the dispute between China and the United States was playing out in
private, a group of poor nations threw the talks off track for a time
with a public protest. They complained that the industrial countries were
doing too little to curb their own climate-altering emissions and
consigning them to perpetual poverty.
Representatives of several African officials demanded that the rich
countries sign a binding treaty that included a large transfer of wealth
to the developing world. They brought the public sessions of the meeting
to a halt at midday, but delegates began returning to the large
conference hall as evening fell, and the talks resumed in desultory
fashion.
John Hay, a spokesman for the United Nations body sponsoring the
conference, said: “The plenary was suspended. A slew of technical
meetings have not taken place. It’s an indication of how adamant the G-77
are about these issues,” he said, referring to the group of less-
developed nations.
In New York on Monday, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general,
warned the negotiators in Copenhagen that leaving too much for the heads
of state and government to hammer out at the end of the week risked
enfeebling any final deal.
“There is no time left for posturing or blaming,” he said at a news
conference, before leaving for the Danish capital. “If everything is left
to leaders to resolve at the last minute, we risk having a weak deal or
no deal at all, and this will be a failure of potentially catastrophic
consequences.”
Todd Stern, the chief American negotiator, acknowledged that Monday had
been a difficult day but said that progress continued to be made.
“In any big and complicated negotiation, and this may be the biggest and
most complicated ever, it never goes smoothly,” he said. “It never goes
as planned. There’s always bumps. There’s always zigs and zags, people
getting up and down, and that’s to be expected.”
Andrew C. Revkin and Elisabeth Rosenthal contributed reporting from
Copenhagen, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.
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