The ostensible leader of the Democratic Party just completed what must fairly be called a historic agreement with China over climate change:
According to the plan, the United States will reduce carbon emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, nearly twice the existing target—without imposing new restrictions on power plants or vehicles.
Tuesday’s announcement is equally remarkable for China’s commitment. For the first time, China has set a date at which it expects its emissions will “peak,” or finally begin to taper downward: around 2030. China is currently the world’s biggest emitter of carbon pollution, largely because of its coal-dependent economy, and reining in emissions while continuing to grow has been the paramount challenge for China’s leaders.
If this doesn’t sound like much, then consider that this is the first time that China has ever put any sort of upper bound on its carbon emissions. This deal certainly isn’t enough to curb climate change, and it’s non-binding so it’s not even clear that these goals will actually be met, but it could well be a major milestone if it signals that China is really prepared to pursue cleaner energy.
Naturally Republicans are angry. This deal potentially mitigates one of their favorite arguments for doing nothing on the climate: the idea that American action doesn’t matter as long as China refuses to act. Well, China just signaled that it plans to act, so now what? But what’s less clear is where the rest of the Democratic Party stands on this, or on the environment in general these days. Lately the Democrats have:
- Run a Senate candidate in Kentucky who actually tried to come at Mitch McConnell from the right on fossil fuels. The only way Alison Lundergan Grimes could have portrayed herself as more “pro-coal” would have been to light a pile of the stuff on fire at every one of her campaign stops.
- Run a whole bunch of other people for office who, while not as ridiculously loud about it as Grimes, couldn’t talk enough about their deep love for fossil fuels.
- Openly considered holding a Senate vote to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project, which will increase the exploitation of the highest polluting form of oil on the planet in Canada’s tar sands, in a lame attempt to boost Mary Landrieu’s DOA runoff prospects.
If Republicans are the “we’re not scientists” party, have the Democrats become the “hey, we’re happy to ignore the science too, if you want” party? Because, as with pretty much every other issue, if all the Democrats have to offer is “we’re just like Republicans except less crazy,” that’s not going to win them many elections.
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 
The Democratic position on the environment is we must all freak out over stupid nonsense that is not going to hurt anybody, as a smokescreen to cover the fact that we believe the scientists (for instance, me) when they/I talk about the truly important stuff that may in fact kill us all but that nothing much will be done about it.
This agreement with China is nice, in the same way that installing rooftop solar and driving a Prius is nice, and it is light years ahead of what we can expect from the Republicans – but it’s not going to get the job done. In my professional capacity as a scientist I go along with the economists when they recommend a carbon price, uniformly applied across the globe with rebates and tariffs and serious enforcement mechanisms, as the one serious tool that has the potential to bring the carbon emission problem under control.
I prefer carbon tax, cap & trade seems to be more politically feasible for reasons that are not obvious to me, but either way we have to do this.