Can China Do Transparency?

Reporting from Copenhagen

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton tossed the ball into China’s court during a press conference this morning by quoting a Chinese proverb: “When you are in a common boat, you have to cross the river peacefully together.”

Those who know Chinese proverbs said she did so intentionally to “publicly put China on the spot.” Clinton’s statement concluded by stressing the need to come to an agreement on transparency.

This afternoon, China tossed the ball away, intimating that it would not play the United States’ game.

Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs He Yafei agrees that transparency is necessary and said China would fulfill its emissions targets in a transparent manner consistent with respect for national sovereignty and with the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and Bali roadmaps — international regimes the U.S. has agreed to.

The key question is whether, left to its own devices and agreeing to continue reporting to the UNFCCC, China can do transparency and if its data can be trusted.

Those who have intimate experience with China have varying opinions. The U.S. has a history of accusing China of jiggery-pokery with its numbers on GDP, currency value, and oil consumption.

The Climate Group China’s Changhua Wu says China currently does not have the full infrastructure or capacity to adequately and accurately report its emissions. China does have the basic infrastructure for energy efficiency reporting in the form of software and human capacity. She says that while China has implemented an environmental monitoring system that focuses on pollution, that system is concentrated in only government-owned Enterprises, which means that more than half the economy, companies in the emerging private sector, are not yet reporting.

“What I hope to see is that the U.S. and China will work together to share expertise and resources and build capacity,” Wu says. But, she emphasizes, that doesn’t mean that China should submit to mandatory international monitoring.

Wu says the U.S. is using the negotiations to turn attention away from itself: “This is a negotiation and U.S. is in difficult situation, difficult domestic political situation. They have to find someone else to blame which I don’t like to see at all.”

Yanli Hou of WWF China disagrees. She says there is room for improvement and some capacity building in Chinese infrastructure, but that the basic infrastructure present is more than enough to go forward with.

“If I am the delegate, I would suggest to have capacity building support from the developed countries,” Hou says. Reporting, she says, should be left to China at the national level.

Every year, the National People’s Congress assesses China’s progress on its five-year plans, the results of which are published with the media, Hou explains. “The fundamental issue” is China’s conformity to standardized metrics for measuring emissions and carbon reductions, she says. Doing so will increase trust and bring transparency that China desires.

Hou suggests that developed countries help China with methodology and best practices, which is precisely the arrangement that China and the U.S. have already made under several bilateral agreements. The joint announcement for a China-U.S. Clean Technology Research Center and various other partnerships and plans is set up that way, as are provincial agreements, for example the framework agreement for strategic cooperation on climate change between California and Jiangsu province. In Hou's view, more stringent regulation isn’t necessary.

According to Anthony Hobley, a Partner at Norton Rose LLP, the key phrase, repeated over and over by developed and developing countries, including China, as justification for their positions is “common but differentiated responsibilities.”