Under a Trump administration, China could become the world champion for climate change reform, says Reuters: “China worked closely with the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama to build momentum ahead of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The partnership of the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters helped get nearly 200 countries to support the pact at the historic meet in France’s capital.”
And by continuing that work, even if the U.S. reneges on the Paris deal, China can then use the leverage it gains in climate negotiations to increase its influence on other areas of global governance, Zou Ji, deputy director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and a senior Chinese climate-talks negotiator, told Reuters. “Proactively taking action against climate change will improve China’s international image and allow it to occupy the moral high ground,” says Zou.
Having once claimed that it had every right to pollute in the service of development, China has changed its tune in recent years. Not only is the country’s capital chocked with smog, but “China has powerful domestic and global imperatives to play a high-profile role in continued global climate change talks, meant to avert more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels that could cause trillions of dollars of damage by 2100,” says Reuters. Now China is aiming to become a “clean energy superpower,” with the development of “low-carbon cities.”
Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and has said he will dismantle the U.S.’s Clean Energy Plan, put into place by President Obama. Trump has also selected climate change-denier Myron Ebell to lead transition planning at EPA.
According to The New York Times, “Mr. Ebell has said that ‘a lot of third-, fourth- and fifth-rate scientists have gotten a long ways’ by embracing climate change. He frequently mocks climate leaders like Al Gore, and has called the movement the ‘forces of darkness’ because ‘they want to turn off the lights all over the world.’”