Commentary—

Let The People Lead On Climate Change

By Steven Kull and Doug Miller

A new University of California study says that China has overtaken the United States as the largest emitter of the carbon dioxide gases that contribute to climate change This result will, no doubt, stimulate new discussion about Chinese leaders having refused to accept any limits on China’s emissions.

China’s defense is that it is still growing its economy and that on a per-capita basis it produces less than a fifth of what the United States produces.

Meanwhile, US leaders have used the fact that China and other developing countries have refused to limit their emissions as a basis for refusing to limit US emissions This is not simply Bush administration intransigence. In 1997 the US Senate voted 95-0 not to enter into any treaties limiting US emissions unless major developing countries such as China limit theirs.

So how to move beyond this impasse? International polling has revealed that the publics in China and the United States are ready to show the way.

A 2007 BBC World Service Poll conducted by GlobeScan together with the Program on International Policy Altitudes found that the Chinese public rejects its government’s position that it has no responsibility to limit its emissions. Presented with the argument that “Because countries that are less wealthy produce relatively low emissions per person, they should not be expected to limit their emissions of climate changing gases,” 68 percent rejected it in favor of the argument that “Because total emissions from less-wealthy countries are substantial and growing these countries should limit their emissions of climate changing gases.”

Majorities of both Chinese (70 percent) and Americans (59 percent) agree that climate change is a pressing problem and that “it is necessary to take major steps starting very soon.”

They are also ready to take tough action. Eighty-eight percent Chinese and 79 percent of Americans agree that it will be necessary for individuals in their country to “make changes in their life style and behavior in order to reduce the amount of climate changing gases they produce.” Seventy-three percent of Chinese and 65 percent of Americans agree that it will necessary to “increase the cost of the types of energy that most cause climate change, such as coal and oil/petrol, in order to encourage individuals and industry to use less.”

But how to address the fact that there is still this imbalance between the developed and developing countries? Here again the publics in China and America agree on a way out. An overwhelming 9 in 10 Chinese and 7 in 10 Americans would support a deal whereby “wealthy countries agree to provide less-wealthy countries with financial assistance and technology, while less-wealthy countries agree to limit the emissions of climate changing gases along with wealthy countries.”

Americans also recognize that the Chinese economy needs to grow; in a 2004 PIPA poll only 30 percent said they thought it was realistic to expect developing countries to actually cut their emissions. However, most thought that they should minimize the rate of growth of their emissions — the kind of thing that would be possible through the technology transfers that would be part of the deal discussed above.

Change is in the wind. The Bush administration has begun to soften its position that more research is needed before any action is taken, and all three of the US presidential candidates say the United Stales should be part of the international regime to fight climate change.

While the Chinese leadership is still resistant, the heavy layers of air pollution that will hang over the Olympic Games in Beijing and the robust industrialization that China will proudly showcase will no doubt make it more difficult for China to plead that it is still so backward that it cannot be a responsible player in addressing this global problem.

When the leaders on both sides finally decide that it is time to act, they need not be concerned that their citizens will have to be dragged along. Rather, they will encounter a public that has been impatiently wondering what has taken them so long.

(Steven Kull is director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland and WorldPublicOpinion.org. Doug Miller is president of GlobeScan Incorporated.)