China Tries to Save Earth; Republicans Furious

In June, after the Obama administration had announced its Clean Power Plan, The Wall Street Journal editorial page mocked its ambition by explaining what has become a vital tenet of right-wing dogma: limiting our carbon emissions would serve no purpose, since other countries in general, and China in particular, would never agree to limit theirs. “Mr. Obama's logic seems to be that the U.S. should first set a moral example by imposing costs that reduce our prosperity,” sneered the Journal’s editors, “This will then inspire China (8.7 billion tons), which produces and consumes nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined, to do the same to its 300 million people who still live on pennies a day. Good luck persuading Xi Jinping.”

Guess what? They seem to have persuaded Xi Jinping. 

In a surprise announcement, the United States and China, which combine to produce nearly half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, struck a deal to reduce their emissions. The U.S., which has already pledged to reduce its emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, now promises to reduce them by 26 to 28 percent by 2025. China promises to cap its emissions by no later than 2030 and to produce one- fifth of its energy from zero-emissions sources by then.

It is obviously far from a settled fact that China will actually fulfill its commitments. (Or, for that matter, that the United States will — a Republican president in 2017 could, and probably would, bring American emissions reductions to a screeching halt.) At the same time, people who closely study Chinese politics report that it has well-considered internal reasons for reducing carbon pollution, not even considering the general interest it shares with the rest of humanity in mitigating a global calamity. Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has previously expressed skepticism, offers guarded optimism on China’s new promises.

The Republican Party and its intellectual allies regard close analysis of Chinese internal motivations as a useless exercise. Conservatives oppose taxes or regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions, therefore they dismiss scientific conclusions that would justify such regulations, and therefore they also dismiss geopolitical analyses that would have the same effect. On the right, it is simply an a priori truth that nothing could persuade China to limit its emission. Obviously, the feasibility of a deal with China is far less certain than the scientific consensus undergirding anthropogenic global warming. What is parallel between the two is the certainty of conservative skepticism and imperviousness to contrary evidence.

Over the last several years, as open advocacy of scientific denial has grown somewhat less fashionable, conservatives have leaned more heavily on their premise that Chinese emissions are immutable. As Marco Rubio has argued, “What I disagree with is the notion if we pass cap and trade, for example, this will stop this from happening, when in fact half of the new emissions on the planet are coming from developing countries and half of that is coming from one country, China, that isn’t going to follow whatever laws we pass.” Many, many other Republicans have echoed this refrain. 

Source:nymag.com