Although many issues have divided China and the United States over the last few decades, the release of carbon from fossil fuels into the atmosphere is now, curiously, something we share in common. Together, the two countries produce almost half of the world’s annual emissions of greenhouse gases. And, as its energy consumption doubled from 2000 to 2007, China’s share of global emissions rose to 24 percent, from 13 percent—topping the United States in total annual greenhouse gas emissions for the first time.

The sheer size of the carbon footprint left by these two nations means that the fate of every nation is now ineluctably connected to how American and Chinese leaders fashion their energy policies, deal with their respective carbon emissions, and, especially, decide how to use their plentiful supplies of coal. Because burning coal is cheap, neither country is likely to kick the habit any time soon. China and the United States claim 13 percent and 27 percent of global coal reserves, respectively, from which they currently derive some 80 percent and 50 percent of their electrical energy.

So, as President Obama begins his term of office, a question arises: might these two nations unite under their shared habits of energy consumption? Possibly, because the undeniable reality is that, so far as climate change is concerned, the interests of China and the United States are demonstrably the same. Indeed, one atom of carbon emitted into the global atmosphere in China is just as harmful as one atom emitted in the United States. Moreover, the damaging effects of rapidly escalating emissions from both nations have become increasingly evident in many alarming global phenomena, including elevated temperatures, rapidly melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, loss of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, changing rainfall patterns, and perturbed watersheds. Because these two countries are now unable to avoid the consequences of each other’s actions, they are left with no other real alternative than to collaborate on a major new program of cooperation to develop common solutions to this common challenge.

Consider the following: the US Department of Energy recently reported that if both China and the United States proceed on their current course, China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions will grow to 12 billion metric tons in 2030 (from 5.3 billion metric tons in 2005), while US emissions will grow to 6.9 billion metric tons in the same time frame (from around 6 billion metric tons). If China takes no major remedial actions, by 2030 it will have accounted for more than 40 percent of global growth in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Given such startling figures, you would think that China was the world’s main climate offender. But in fact, US per capita emissions are roughly five times greater than China’s, and when you calculate the total historical burden of carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption since the industrial revolution began, China ends up having contributed only 8.5 percent of the total, compared with 28 percent from the United States. Given this imbalance in historical and per capita emissions, it is hardly surprising that China argues that, in any future partnership, the United States must take the lead, assume more responsibility, and make a greater economic contribution. Indeed, this very principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” has been adopted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

There are, of course, major differences between China and the United States. China’s industrial sector, which is largely coal fired, now consumes 70 percent of the country’s energy production, while the US industrial sector consumes only 33 percent. Although these figures are changing as a result of the global economic recession, what is interesting about them is that even as US labor union officials lament the offshoring of American jobs, we are also outsourcing many of the dirtiest industries in the United States and their resulting pollution to China.

However, there is no advantage to a nation that exports its carbon emissions, because their effects are global. Yet China and the United States, the world’s largest producers of carbon dioxide, are collectively doing little to curb these activities that have such significant global consequences. China, for example, has signed the Kyoto Protocol (the international environmental treaty established by the United Nations in 1992, to help stabilize greenhouse gas emissions), but since it is a “developing” country, it is not obliged to meet any absolute limits. The United States signed Kyoto as well, but President Clinton never brought it to the Senate for ratification, and President Bush later repudiated it. Consequently, neither of the world’s two largest users of coal and emitters of carbon dioxide currently accepts any defined limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

China has been working assiduously, however, toward greater energy efficiency, a logical place for a developing nation to begin without adding excessive costs to continued growth. Because the country is only about a ninth as energy-efficient as Japan and a quarter to a fifth as energy-efficient as the United States, there is still much slack to be taken up. Indeed, in 2005, China’s 11th Five-Year Plan called for a 20 percent reduction in energy intensity per unit of GDP by the year 2010.

What has weighed against significant new joint action by China and the United States is an incomplete understanding of the gravity of the problem and a fear that adopting absolute limits or binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions might impede economic development. As a result, relatively little has been accomplished to move these two titanic players toward meaningful new forms of collaboration.

Both countries have been trapped in what Dr. Mark Levine, staff senior scientist and China Energy Group leader at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has described as “a vicious circle. Neither country will act boldly unless the other acts first, and neither appears willing to act first.”

The Bush administration, despite the opportunity its successful Strategic Economic Dialogue framework with China offered, never aggressively engaged China in a partnership to solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge for the Obama administration will be to break out of this paralyzed bilateral dynamic. Ever prickly about being told what to do, China will not always be an easy partner. But the reality is that the two countries no longer have any choice but to try.

The Asia Society Center on US–China Relations (where I serve as director), the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and a number of other organizations ¹ have now drafted a road map for the new president. This plan outlines how a new partnership between China and the United States could be formed to jointly conduct research and development on new energy efficiency technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration, reliable methods of data collection, sustainable energy, and other innovations that could coalesce into the foundations of a new economic model. The road map also shows how a new partnership could have a very salutary spillover effect by helping to stabilize America’s overall relationship with China and catalyzing a new economy.

Sino–US ties represent the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. If China and the United States are ever going to break through to a new framework—a change comparable to the one brought about by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the early 1970s—they must find a way to convert the relationship from a collection of disparate interests and conflicts to one based on a new foundation of mutual interest.

So, if climate change presents us with an enormous challenge, it also paradoxically presents us with a promising opportunity. Whether or not this opportunity will be taken up remains uncertain. Is there sufficiently bold leadership on each side of the Sino–US divide to form such a partnership? We will have to wait and see.

¹ The Brookings Institution, the National Committee on US–China Relations, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

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