Progress in global climate negotiations has stalled since the breakdown of the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, when developed and developing countries failed to agree on assuming responsibility for past emissions and accepting binding commitments on future cuts. Since then, leaders have shifted their strategies to spur greater action on climate change by making unilateral contributions that motivate other nations to reciprocate. This summer, President Obama announced voluntary national emissions cuts and China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, followed with plans to implement a national carbon market. Some Chinese experts believe China could announce an absolute cap on emissions early next year.

Ahead of the UN Climate Summit this month, Carnegie–Tsinghua’s Wang Tao discussed the prospects for international cooperation with Dr. Zou Ji, deputy director of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy (NCSC) and one of China’s veteran climate change negotiators. Wang predicted that the international climate agreement, which leaders are expected to begin drafting at the upcoming UN Summit meeting, would be the last chance for an international deal on climate change.

Zou noted that the voluntary emissions cuts by the United States were commendable, but not ambitious enough to motivate other countries to make changes in their own policies. He argued that developing countries can only set more ambitious targets to address climate change if developed countries pledge greater financial and technological support for developing countries. With the debate evidently still paralyzed over who should bear responsibility for emissions, the ability of the United States to inspire enhanced participation in international climate change efforts by China and other large developing will prove far more significant than its own progress on domestic benchmarks, they concluded.

Zou Ji

Zou Ji is the deputy director of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy under the National Development and Reform Commission in China. He served as a Chinese delegate to the UN Climate Talks from 2000-2009 and 2012 until the present. Zou has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and United Nations Development Program, and served as the China Country Director for World Resources Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental and resources economics from Renmin University of China, as well as a master’s degree in engineering economics and a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from Tsinghua University.