A Climate Coalition of the Willing
A Climate Coalition of the Willing
复制标题
自愿的气候联盟
DOI：
10.1080/0163660x.2011.534971
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Thomas N. Hale
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Thomas N. Hale
政府间限制导致气候变化的气体的努力几乎失败了。在2010年哥本哈根峰会失败之后，2010年坎昆会议几乎没有取得进展，很难看到主要排放国如何在短期内就共同减排达成一致，以防止全球平均气温大幅上升（超过2摄氏度）。不难看出原因。美国和中国的温室气体排放量占世界总量的40%以上，如果把这两个国家排除在外，任何协议都不值一提。但这两个国家的国内政治实际上阻碍了“G-2”在气候问题上的领导地位。在美国，奥巴马政府基本上已经放弃了全国性的总量管制和交易立法。即使是相对温和的克里-利伯曼-格雷厄姆能源法案在参议院也没有通过。而中国政府则面临着更为严格的限制。尽管中国已经通过了重要的能源效率目标，但中国共产党将其合法性和政治生存押在了提高普通中国人生活水平上。接受国际承诺，即使有很小的机会将该国的国内生产总值增长率降低到一个关键的门槛以下，也会对政权的稳定构成不可接受的风险。尽管G-2是全球条约的最大和最明显的障碍，但它们也为其他政府避免采取侵略行动提供了方便的借口。因此，国际社会不应指望谈判一项有价值的《京都议定书》后续文书，至少在近期内不应这样做。
Intergovernmental efforts to limit the gases that cause climate change have all but failed. After the unsuccessful 2010 Copenhagen summit, and with little progress at the 2010 Cancun meeting, it is hard to see how major emitters will agree any time soon on mutual emissions reductions that are sufficiently ambitious to prevent a substantial (greater than two degree Celsius) increase in average global temperatures. It is not hard to see why. No deal excluding the United States and China, which together emit more than 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases (GHGs), is worth the paper it is written on. But domestic politics in both countries effectively block ‘‘G-2’’ leadership on climate. In the United States, the Obama administration has basically given up on national cap-and-trade legislation. Even the relatively modest Kerry-Lieberman-Graham energy bill remains dead in the Senate. The Chinese government, in turn, faces an even harsher constraint. Although the nation has adopted important energy efficiency goals, the Chinese Communist Party has staked its legitimacy and political survival on raising the living standard of average Chinese. Accepting international commitments that stand even a small chance of reducing the country’s GDP growth rate below a crucial threshold poses an unacceptable risk to the stability of the regime. Although the G-2 present the largest and most obvious barrier to a global treaty, they also provide a convenient excuse for other governments to avoid aggressive action. Therefore, the international community should not expect to negotiate a worthwhile successor to the Kyoto Protocol, at least not in the near future.