Cross-posted from: here
Our relationship with China moving forward is going to be extremely crucial when it comes to forging a new global climate treaty. The Chinese and the US are by far the worlds two largest polluters, together responsible for somewheres around 50% of global warming emissions. Any global treaty that doesn’t involve both the US and China is an empty treaty. This stalemate has been the tale of global efforts to tackle climate change. The US won’t act unless China will act. China won’t act since the US won’t act, and it’s still a developing country using coal to industrialize. China says the US needs to act as well, and that there needs to be compensation for adaptation and technology transfer needed. It’s a situation where these two carbon behemoths need to sit down and hammer out an agreement between themselves. I’m aware there are a number of summits between the two countries going on this year, leading up to the final forging of a new treaty in Copenhagen in December.
The personnel that President Obama is appointing to negotiate with China on the climate issue are some of the most important appointments of his administration. We now are about to have our ambassador to China. It’s the Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who also happens to be a Republican. I’ve written before about how not all Republicans are bad on environmental and energy issues, just most of them. Jon Huntsman appears to be one of the Republicans who gets it. Huntsman added his state to an ambitious regional greenhouse gas initiative effort in the West to reduce emissions 15% below 2005 levels by 2020. If you want to get an even better idea of Huntsman’s entire body of work when it comes to energy, check out his priorities on energy security. The additional thing that impressively stands out to me is a renewable electricity standard that will get Utah 20% of it’s power from renewables by 2025.
I find it fittingly ironic that with all the partisanship in DC, all the bickering on tv with conservative talk show hosts, and a climate debate that has consistently seen Democrats on one side, and Republicans on the other….our best chance of achieving a global climate treaty this year may come down to a Republican Governor from Utah. I don’t know if that offends the environmentalists or the Republicans more, but I think it’s a good thing. This shouldn’t be a bipartisan issue, and Jon Huntsman’s record is testament to that.
Here’s the article: here
