Culture

"No, That's Your Carbon Molecule!"

By Sean Nelson

---

Let's say that there are only two countries in the world, Country A and Country B. Country A has recently become the world's largest polluter due to the growth of that country's manufacturing base. Country B used to be the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases for nearly a century and continues to release more carbon dioxide on a per capita basis due to its higher consumption and lower population. Country A feels that it is Country B's job to clean up the environment because Country B is responsible for more of the pollution now present in the atmosphere. Country B feels that the dynamic of the problem – Country B's rising emissions - are a bigger issue that have to be dealt with first before Country B should have to do anything because it won't matter what Country B does if Country A just undoes all of that progress. Both Country A and Country B would benefit from both countries changing their behavior to reduce their respective environmental footprints over time. However, the two countries are stuck in a relationship where each feels the other should act first. As such, instead of mutually beneficial progress, all that takes place mutually harmful policy inertia.

As you have probably guessed by now, Country A is China and Country B is the United States. China is waiting for the United States to take meaningful steps towards reducing its carbon footprint, such as joining the Kyoto Protocols, while the US believe that unless large nations with rapidly growing economies, especially India and China, don't get on board first, any reductions the US makes would rendered moot by China's and India’s rising emissions. The question becomes one of both morality and practicality: who should act first?

Perhaps the science of the question can help us answer that. When carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it stays up there for about eighty years. For part of the 20th century, the Soviet Union was the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, but since they no longer exist, that question is moot. The other primary polluter was the United States. Even if China remains the world's leader in greenhouse gas emissions far into the foreseeable future, it won't be until 2050 when the bulk of those emissions presently in the atmosphere will have come from China. The United States, as the leading economy that posts the highest per capita emissions, thus has the responsibility to be the world leader on global warming. In addition, the US has the infrastructure to be able to properly implement an effective policy, whether that is a cap-and-trade policy or a carbon tax. As Elizabeth Economy, one of the leading scholars in the US on Chinese environmental issues, writes:

The central government in Beijing actually has little on-the-ground enforcement capability in the provinces. Local environmental protection officials report to and are beholden to local government officials, not to the State Environmental Protection Administration in Beijing.

The economist Ha-Joon Chang, researching the history of economic development across countries, had shown that it takes money and time to be able to build effective institutions. This happened in the US and is happening in China. Luckily, since nations with growing economies today can learn from the past, the likes of China will probably develop the necessary institutions and mechanisms in a timelier manner than their predecessors, such as the US. As such, the US cannot wait around for China to develop to the point that a rising standard of living improves China's infrastructure to the point that Beijing has an easier time implementing its policies. Under the current arrangement, local governments in places like Shenzhen and small towns in Oregon often lead the charge to handle the situation locally, but this means that coordination toward an coherent, optimal policy becomes difficult in both the US and China, thus reducing effectiveness. China is also considering implementing taxes on companies that pollute. It will remain to be seen how effective (possibly along the lines of a carbon tax) such a policy turns out to be.

In some ways, however, characterizing the debate in this manner - American emissions vs. Chinese emissions - is an archaic framework in which to analyze the current situation. As a recent series on Chinese environmental issues in the New York Times has pointed out, Western firms have been moving their heavy industrial production bases from their companies' home countries to China. The home country is thus able to import those products at lower prices than before while enjoying the benefits of an improved local environment as the home market enters the post-industrial age. Such Western firms, whether the ones that own the factories or simply follow the Wal-Mart model of buying those products and selling them abroad, end up reaping the most benefit by pocketing the lion's share of the profits. Pollution then becomes, in some ways, both a Chinese export to the world and a Western export to China. In addition, when certain industries, such as paper production, move their production facilities to China, it is largely only the local water supply in China that becomes polluted (assuming, of course, that these bodies are not shared with any country on China's borders). According to CNN, as China has dealt with this issue by closing down some paper mills to reduce water pollution, the locally-produced paper supply contracts, causing prices to go up. As such, book prices rise in the Chinese market to the point that they suddenly become out of a consumer’s price range. Some books, such as Dan Brown novels, have seen their prices rise by twenty percent since 2004. Western firms are thus able to save money producing paper in China, yet local Chinese consumers are left to deal with both rising costs and higher levels of local pollution.

In a recent interview with Fortune Magazine, the successful investor Jim Rogers, when asked about China's environmental challenges, commented:

First of all, the environmental problems are a huge opportunity. Somebody's going to make a fortune on that. I talk about that in the book and mention some of the companies that will be trying to address the problems. Can they solve their problems? There are going to be horrible setbacks along the way. There certainly were in America as we grew and boomed. In 1907 our whole system collapsed and went bankrupt. Turns out that was a good time to buy. That's going to happen in China too. They will probably have political setbacks, environmental setbacks. I don't know when they're going to be, but take advantage of them.

While in some ways this point comes across rather bluntly, he is right to note that it is in the self-interest of American entrepreneurs and policy makers to act in a way that will help China deal with its environmental issues. Technology transfer by firms doing business in China can help both improve plant productivity and clean up the environment. American political leadership on the issue will improve the quality of life worldwide as the presence of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere either go down or emission rates slow to controllable levels. As Jared Diamond, a respected scholar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, pointed out in a recent column in the New York Times, Americans could reduce their emissions by a significant amount and still enjoy the same quality of life because those emissions are due to wasteful behavior that in no way improves one's livelihood. Here is to hoping that enlightened self-interest will help the world get through the climate crisis.

Vocabulary:

pollution: 污染 wū rǎn
carbon dioxide: 二氧化碳 èr yǎng huà tàn
greenhouse gas: 温室气体 wēn shì qì tǐ
emission: 排放 pái fàng
climate crisis: 气候危机 qì hòu wēi jī

 

---