China Proud of Keeping Everyone Out

China Doesn't Want Anyone Checking Up On Their Environmental ProgressIn the continuing saga that is defining the winners, losers, meanings and framework of the passed and largely inconsequential Copenhagen summit, China is making another claim that they haven’t made before, and one that has me tilting my head as to why they would bother: China is saying that it accomplished its goal in Copenhagen, which was to keep financial aid for developing nations from being linked to external reviews of China's own environmental plans. This is a strange victory to celebrate, I think.

It just doesn’t seem like the kind of conference you walk away from and say, well, I got mine. It was about everyone coming together to figure out a deal that worked for everyone, though it seems that what resulted is disintegrating into petty finger-pointing, a throwing up of hands, and a general sense that we missed a big opportunity.

One thing that did come out of the meeting was a commitment to give $100 billion in financial aid by 2020 to developing nations, more or less to adapt to the effect of climate change.

"Next time, we can talk about when will they pay the money and how much each country will pay," said a Chinese official.

One of China’s goals was to make sure that that money was not contingent on outside checks on China’s own progress toward curbing carbon emissions and other greenhouse gas releases. China pledged increasing transparency but said they would never accept an outside check of their plans.

In another comment seemingly meant only to make themselves look awesome, China said that they were on pace to meet their energy intensity goals. Energy intensity is the amount of energy consumed to produce each dollar of national income. Their goal is to cut it by 20% from 2005 to 2010- they are currently at a 16% cut as of the end of 2009.

They also said that one of their main goals is to continue cutting their energy intensity and that it factors in to their next five year plan.

So, what I am getting from this is an unequivocal, pretty basic get out of my face to the international community from China, which isn’t that hard to swallow- they are a big country and it makes sense that they don’t want other countries getting all up in their business- I mean, what if China wanted to come and audit the U.S. environmental numbers, would we let that happen? Um, no.

But the difference here is that China may be part of the money that goes from developed to developing countries, as they are still considered a developing country even though they are the world’s biggest emitter of carbon emissions. Quite the paradox.

The bottom line, though, is that they are bragging about keeping other countries out, which isn’t a good way to approach international diplomacy. Talking about the energy intensity cuts and about how it will be a focus in their 5 year plan? Great. Anything that underscores the disconnects and failures in community-building at Copenhagen? Not.

Photo Credit: AdamCohn (via Flickr under CCL)