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 "It's not a big problem at all," the leader in opinion polls for
the Republican presidential nomination told a radio talk show host.
"If you look at China, they're doing nothing about it."
This week, Chinese President Xi Jinping came to Washington and
agreed to take new measures. Standing alongside President Barack
Obama at the White House, the Chinese leader committed his country
to a series of ambitious policies aimed at countering the rise in
global temperatures.
Xi said China would introduce a national cap-and-trade system in
2017 that would limit carbon emissions across major industrial
sectors, from electricity to iron and steel production. He also
pledged to match tougher U.S. fuel standards on heavy trucks planned
for 2019, and committed $3.1 billion to help poor countries adapt to
climate change.
"President Xi has lifted the final political excuse of inaction in
Washington,” said Li Shuo, a campaigner for environmental group
Greenpeace.
 China's aid money matches a similar pledge made last year by Obama,
though the money has yet to be delivered to the UN-backed Green
Climate Fund because of Republican refusal to appropriate the funds.
Despite the joint announcement by Xi and Obama, some Republicans
remained adamantly opposed to a climate deal.
"If the president was serious about achieving a substantive climate
agreement, he would spend more time working with Congress instead of
developing press releases with the Chinese government," said Senator
James Inhofe of Oklahoma. "These public pledges sound good but come
with serious economic consequences for the United States."
For his part, Trump has not made any public comments about the
agreement since it was announced. He did not immediately respond to
an emailed request for comment on Friday.
The pledges mean that the world's two biggest carbon emitters have
now aligned their climate diplomacy going into negotiations for a
global accord in Paris this December. It marks a long evolution from
the Kyoto climate talks in the 1990s, when China refused to sign any
agreement that would limit carbon emissions. That position
undermined support for the Kyoto agreement in the U.S. Congress,
which refused to ratify it.
That sentiment remains strong among Republican lawmakers and some
Democrats, who oppose U.S. measures to limit carbon emissions
because, in part, China has been reluctant to do the same. The
result has been a standoff between Obama and Congress that hit a
nadir in 2010 when the Senate balked at passing the administration's
attempt to enact a national carbon market.
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Now Xi says China will move ahead with just such a market.
“The irony is rich: emissions trading is an American idea; now it's
become an American export,” said David Sandalow, a fellow at
Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and former
under secretary of energy for policy and international affairs.
Other parts of the Chinese package reveal a similar change - in
tone, at least.
China's financial pledge is a “watershed moment” for climate
diplomacy, environmental groups say, because it shows a willingness
to share the billions of dollars believed required to help poor
countries shift to low-carbon economies and deal with the effects of
a hotter planet. China has long seen itself as a developing nation
that is expected to be on the receiving end of any international
largesse.
Jake Schmidt, international policy director of the Natural Resources
Defense Council, said this change in attitude removes a common
complaint about China from Congressional opponents.
“China is not going to be the recipient of U.S. climate financing,
which is how some of our friends on the Hill are painting it,” said
Schmidt. “This is a better narrative.”
In fact, Obama is the more likely leader who will be forced to show
up in Paris without money. The first $500 million of the president's
$3 billion pledge is held up in thorny budget negotiations on
Capitol Hill, where some Republican lawmakers have vowed to block
any international climate funding.
(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Bruce Wallace and Ken
Wills)
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