On his final trip to Asia as US President, Barack Obama arrived in China on Saturday morning.
Obama is expected to join Chinese leader Xi Jinping in announcing that their countries are formally taking part in a historic global climate deal.
Meanwhile, China announced in a brief dispatch that it will formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement, paving the way for the joint US-China statement, according to The Guardian.
Manufacturing and growing levels of pollution have caused the world to warm by roughly 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times. In December 2015, more than 160 countries agreed to cut down emissions to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius.
The US and China, the world’s leading polluters, contribute around 40% of the world’s heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
In Hangzhou, Obama will meet with Xi ahead of a summit of the Group of 20, a collection of industrial and emerging-market nations. Environmental groups and experts tracking global climate policy said they expected the two leaders would jointly enter the sweeping emissions-cutting deal reached last year in Paris.
Unlikely partners on addressing global warming, the US and China have sought to use their collaboration to ramp up pressure on other countries to take concrete action as well.
Entering the climate agreement has been an intricate exercise in diplomatic choreography. The deal was reached in December, and the US, China and many others signed it in April, on Earth Day.
Even the third step formally participating in the deal doesn’t bring it into force in the US or China. That won’t happen until a critical mass of polluting countries joins.
But What About Maritime Disputes, Cybersecurity...
Yet thornier issues like maritime disputes and cybersecurity shadow Obama’s visit.
The alliance on climate has been a rare bright spot between the US and China in recent years, a relationship otherwise characterised by tensions over China’s emergence as a key global power. Washington has been deeply concerned about China’s territorial ambitions in waters far off its coast, while Beijing looks warily at Obama’s efforts to expand US influence in Asia, viewing it as an attempt to contain China’s rise.
Obama, in a CNN interview, said he’d told China’s leaders repeatedly that with more global power comes more responsibility.
Part of what I’ve tried to communicate to President Xi is that the US arrives at its power, in part, by restraining itself. When we bind ourselves to a bunch of international norms and rules, it’s not because we have to, it’s because we recognise that over the long term, building a strong international order is in our interests.Barack Obama
Of China’s artificial island-building in the South China Sea, Obama added: “We’ve indicated to them that there will be consequences.”
(With inputs from AP, PTI and The Guardian.)
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