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WORD COUNT
670
MAY 21, 2008
LET THE PEOPLE LEAD
ON CLIMATE CHANGE – 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
gasses 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 thai. “Because countries that are
less wealthy produce relatively low emissions per person, they should
not be expected to limit their emissions of climate changing gasses.” 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 gasses.”
Majorities of both
Chinese (70%) and
Americans (59%) 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 7111 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 theft 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
thins 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 ii is still so
backward that it cannot be a responsible player in addressing this
global problem.
When the
leaders on both sides
frna1ly decide that it is time to act they need riot be concerned that
their citizens will have to he 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.
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