China Turns Negotiating Tables on U.S. in Stalled Climate Talks
By Kim Chipman - Dec 2, 2010 7:31 PM ET
The U.S. pressed China to do more at climate-change talks in Copenhagen last year. Now, as the U.S. falls short of its own goals, China may have gained more credibility in renewed negotiations by moving to clean up its energy industry.
“It used to be thought that China wouldn’t act until the U.S. took leadership,” Mark Fulton, a managing director at Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors in New York, said in an interview. “But unless I’ve missed something, China has already taken substantial action.”
The U.S. and China, the two biggest greenhouse-gas polluters, are in Cancun, Mexico, for the latest round of United Nations-led talks aimed at curtailing global warming. Envoys from 190 nations are seeking ways to show progress after last year’s failure to craft a new, legally binding accord.
Since then, U.S. President Barack Obama’s effort to win legislation that would cap carbon dioxide emissions died in Congress. China moved in the opposite direction, making pollution cuts and energy efficiency the law and considering a CO2-trading system.
China attracted $34.5 billion in renewable-energy investments last year, almost double the U.S. figure of $18.6 billion, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
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