The Climate Fallout of Pelosi's Missteps in Taiwan

In recent weeks, the US-China great power conflict has been heating up in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. The tensions are now spilling over into the two countries’ work on climate change mitigation, and the fallout could be monumental.?

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taiwan in early August to bolster relations with the Taiwanese government and work out a new trade deal with the island nation. The trip had rare bipartisan support in Congress, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans even issuing a statement of support for the House Speaker during her trip. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen also expressed gratitude for American support and Pelosi’s trip, calling the Speaker “one of Taiwan’s most devoted friends .”

Notably, the Chinese government warned against Pelosi’s visit , threatening that the trip would have “consequences” and that Beijing would “not sit idly by” if it went through. For context, China still claims Taiwan as a lost territory after the 1949 Civil War and objects to all foreign support for the island nation. The White House and Department of Defense also reportedly requested that Pelosi postpone her trip in late July on geopolitical grounds, but to no avail.?

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan could backfire both geopolitically and environmentally. Image courtesy of The Indian Express .

Beijing’s response to Pelosi’s visit was predictable but striking nonetheless. China commenced a week-long shock-and-awe style military exercise near Taiwan, firing missiles over the island, sending jets over Taiwanese airspace, and positioning naval vessels around Taiwan to demonstrate how Beijing could take control of the tiny island nation by force if it wanted to. Commentators have remarked that China is using the US-Taiwan visit to set a “new status quo ” in the region, and many foreign policy analysts are now calling the Pelosi visit a massive misstep . We’ve yet to see the full geopolitical consequences of the trip, which could further isolate Taiwan in the face of an emboldened Chinese government looking to make a point.

But beyond the military escalation, the Taiwan visit could have disastrous climate consequences behind the scenes. On August 5, China announced that it would suspend bilateral climate talks with the U.S. in response to the Pelosi visit. A climate working group of U.S. and Chinese policymakers and experts slated to meet in September to discuss joint climate action has been canceled, calling into question future climate collaboration between the two countries. These discussions have been ring-fenced from geopolitical conflict until now, and U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry remarked that the world will suffer the consequences if US-China climate cooperation is discontinued. So how bad is it, and what now?

China has taken a leadership role on climate since the Paris Agreement

The tenure of Chinese President Xi Jinping has seen China grow more confident in its newfound position of international leadership, and climate change has been a key area where Beijing has envisioned itself in a leadership role. In the Obama years, China worked with the U.S. to secure global cooperation for the 2015 Paris Agreement, with much work going through a US-China climate working group set up by the Obama administration.

Beijing then emerged as the global leader on climate change during the Trump presidency , laying out a vision of a low-carbon future and corralling countries behind climate action when the U.S. exited the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump disbanded the working group, which had become the functional heart of the two countries’ climate cooperation.

Beijing emerged as the global leader on climate change during years of U.S. inaction on climate under the Trump administration. Image credit of Li Yang / Unsplash.

The election of President Biden was meant to herald a resurgent U.S. leadership role in the fight against climate change, but both China and Western allies have been skeptical of the longevity of American climate leadership. China also stands to gain economically from climate leadership, even if the country is a major fossil fuel burner: the country exports billions of dollars of solar panels, electric vehicle parts, and other materials and machines necessary to underpin the global carbon transition.

The global carbon transition needs US-China cooperation for other reasons. The U.S. and China are both the world’s largest economies and the world’s largest emitters. But while U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have been decreasing for over a decade, Chinese emissions are still rising, prompting the ire of many American politicians who see American climate action as a moot point if China is not on board.?

The fickleness of American commitment to international climate action and the skyrocketing GHG emissions figures from China have led both countries to view each other with skepticism when it comes to climate collaboration.??

China’s rising GHG emissions have caused skepticism in Beijing’s climate commitments from lawmakers in the U.S., where emissions have been falling for over a decade. Chart courtesy of Our World in Data.

What happens now?

The collaboration that existed until a few weeks ago was the brainchild of John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, who signed a joint agreement on climate action last year at COP26. This joint agreement resurrected the US-China climate working group to discuss clean electricity, city-level climate action, and methane emissions mitigation, among other topics.?

With COP27 rapidly approaching, one could say this is terrible timing for the collaboration between the world’s two largest emitters to be disintegrating. The U.S. and China collectively make up 40% of the world’s GHG emissions , and getting to a manageable warming outcome looks rather unlikely without action from both countries.?

Some climate experts have looked for a silver lining in the diplomatic rupture, contending that more climate competition between America and China could foster climate tech innovations and new policy developments. The American passage of the Inflation Reduction Act already puts the U.S. on track for a 40% emissions reduction by 2030 and will spark growth in the domestic climate manufacturing industry, with or without China. Maybe China will do the same and corral its neighbors in Asia to get behind climate action.

While I’m an optimist at heart, I disagree with this assessment on two grounds.?

First, while global climate leadership is an attractive prospect for Beijing, the Chinese economy is slowing down, and the Chinese government will always prioritize its economy over the climate. The Chinese Communist Party has already begun promoting coal-fired power as a solution to economic sluggishness, calling to raise coal capacity by 300 million tons this year. The CCP has rejected binding emissions commitments because of economic concerns, instead making ambiguous claims about carbon neutrality with little support. Without accountability from the United States, Beijing can be expected to make bold climate claims and continue to increase fossil fuel emissions, putting the world out of reach of its climate goals.

Back in the United States, Chinese inaction on climate change will encourage American climate critics who already view U.S. climate action as toothless without Chinese accountability. This will lead to further reluctance to spend billions of dollars on climate action here at home and could put the U.S. off track for its climate goals as well.

China has ramped up coal production capacity amidst an economic slowdown, making climate accountability more important than ever. Image courtesy of Dominik Vanyi / Unsplash.

The dismantling of the US-China climate partnership this month exemplifies the fragility of relations between the two countries, but it also demonstrates the interconnectedness of geopolitical and climate issues in the global economy. If the relationship isn’t repaired before COP27, the unintended consequences of Speaker Pelosi’s adventure abroad could be steep.

My Climate Top 5:

1. President Biden passed the historic Inflation Reduction Act this week, ushering in a new era of U.S. climate action. You can check out my top 10 takeaways from the IRA for businesses and financial institutions published in Fast Company here. My blog’s special edition also covers the IRA ’s basics, and we investigated the impacts of the IRA on emissions and inflation two weeks ago.
2. On the inflation note, climate change could be a hidden driver of inflation , pushing up prices by driving supply-chain breakdowns and labor shortages. Rainfall, flooding, heat waves, and droughts help drive up prices by constricting supply, with the latest example being the shutdown of chip and solar panel manufacturing facilities in China due to a record heat wave.
3. Billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates was hustling behind the scenes to save the Biden administration’s climate legislation, as reported in a fascinating Bloomberg Green article . Gates, a longtime climate advocate and author of the climate action quickstart guide How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , quietly backchanneled with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Joe Manchin, and other lawmakers to encourage the passage of climate rules, leveraging his friendship with Manchin to lobby the centrist Senator to get behind the package.
4. The great state of New Jersey is the first to require K-12 climate science education, and a natural ecology lab at Palmyra Cove Nature Park could help students learn about nature conservation and global warming firsthand. The state-of-the-art learning facility on the Delaware Water Gap will help students apply an interdisciplinary approach to climate learning by exploring topics as varied as human cardiorespiratory health to wetland preservation.
5. Most electric vehicles currently on the production line won’t qualify for the federal tax credit reinstated in the Inflation Reduction Act. A fine-print requirement in the bill stipulates that to qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, an EV must contain a battery and minerals built, mined, or recycled in North America, which could incentivize domestic manufacturing but could also drastically reduce the number of cars eligible for a tax credit, the auto industry is warning.