by
N. Peter Kramer
Last week the parable of the rooster thinking the sun rises because he crowed, went through my head, whilst reading a joint statement of Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council President Herman van Rompuy (yes indeed, Herman is still there; his Polish successor first needs some time to learn English, the common language in ‘Brussels’). They welcomed the announcement by the Presidents of China and the United States on their respective post-2020 action on climate change. ‘This announcement shows’, the Juncker/Van Rompuy statement said, ‘that the call by EU leaders on 24 October to other countries to come forward quickly with their intended greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets has been answered’.
Obviously Juncker and Rompuy hadn’t read the letter of US Secretary of State John Kerry in the New York Times, with the striking heading ‘China, America and a warming planet’. It disclosed that the ‘ambitious targets’ in the common announcement were the outcome of a concerted effort of both countries that had already started more than a year ago. ‘The US and China are the world’s two largest economies and two largest emitters of greenhouse gases. We need to solve it together; we have the responsibility to lead’, Kerry wrote and continued, ‘We are encouraging other countries to put forward their own targets soon and to overcome traditional divisions’. Never heard of the European Union Mr Kerry? And the ambitious targets the 28 EU leaders agreed on on October 24?
Anyhow, the Obama – Xi climate agreement is a potential turning point. The US never ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (the world’s first climate change treaty), while developing countries like China were exempted. But President Barack Obama could face opposition to his plans from a Republican controlled Congress. Although he doesn’t have to require congressional ratification, lawmakers can roll back the President’s initiatives and can stop the financial means to accomplish it. For Republicans defeating Obama is more important than cutting emissions. President Xi Jinping is in a more comfortable position. When he wants something, nobody can stop him.
