China’s young lovers spurn love and marriage as Beijing gives Washington the cold shoulder over climate

(Originally published July 21 in “What in the World“) China snubbed White House climate envoy John Kerry’s attempts to bring it to heel on fighting climate change. Instead, President Xi Jinping said China would do it his way.

The discord reflects the chilly temperatures between Beijing and Washington more than China’s own reaction to the soaring temperatures searing the northern hemisphere. Washington would like to get China to do more, on its terms, to arrest climate change. China, on the other hand, is fighting what it sees as an attempt to stunt its revival as a great world power and won’t be seen playing second fiddle to the U.S., even for a good cause.

“The ‘dual carbon’ goal we have committed to is unshakable,” Xi said in a speech Wednesday. China has pledge to start reducing emissions before 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2060. “But the path, method, rhythm, and strength to achieve this goal should and must be determined by ourselves. Never be influenced by others.”

China may win the battle only for the world to lose the war against climate change. China is the second-largest economy, but the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The U.S. emits 14% of global carbon; China contributes 31%.

And while that pollution is exacerbating the intensified impact of a changing climate globally, it is having a clear effect at home. As anyone who has choked through the smog of Beijing or Shanghai can attest, climate change already threatens China’s coastal cities and their more than 280 million residents, who contribute roughly a third of China’s GDP. Rising temperatures, droughts and floods are also hitting China’s harvests, threatening its food security.

It’s clearly just too darn hot for the average person in China. And as any Cole Porter fan knows, “when the thermometer goes way up, and the weather is sizzling hot, Mister Pants for romance is not.” Not only are people in China marrying later and less often, but those that do are increasing adopting a much stricter of version of China’s former one-child policy—a new, no-child policy. That’s exacerbating China’s demographic dilemma, wherein the population is shrinking (now second to India’s) and the average age of its citizens rising. China’s birth rate last year reached a record low, with more deaths than births for the first time in more than 60 years.

But to China, Washington’s carping over climate sounds hypocritical, and the condemnation of its position as largest emitter a kind of statistical “no-shxt-Sherlock.” China is the world’s second-most populous nation, so, duh, its emissions are going to be larger than most everyone else’s. But China’s citizens emit far less than Americans. The pollution created by the average Chinese citizen’s annual power consumption is still almost half that of the average American’s. (The biggest carbon emitters are people in Qatar. India deserves some credit for being the most populous nation, but only the third-largest emitting nation, but 115th in emissions-per-capita.) China also argues that as a developed country, it can’t afford to cut as aggressively as a rich, developed one—and, given that the U.S. has been polluting a lot more for a lot longer, China shouldn’t have to.

A long list of developed-nation citizens emit more than the average Chinese, including Czechs, Japanese, Luxembourgers, Russians, South Koreans, and yes, Americans. Some emit even more than Americans, including Australians, Canadians and anyone living in the oil-rich, desert Gulf states, including Bahrainis, Emiratis, Kuwaitis, Omanis, Qataris and Saudis. So, says Beijing, stick that in your coal-fired power plant and smoke it.

Xi may also be reluctant to do anything that would help the environment at the cost of an already weakening economy. Kerry had reportedly hoped to convince Beijing to phase out coal more quickly. While China leads the world in expanding sustainable energy production, it also continues to build coal-fired power plants to help meet its growing energy needs. China approved construction of 106GW of new coal-fired power capacity in 2022, the highest since 2015 and the equivalent of two large coal power plants per week, according to a report by the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Ironically, much of the drive to build those polluting plants is a reaction to lower power supplies from China’s hydroelectric power plants due to droughts caused at least in some part by climate change.

Relations won’t be helped by news that the May-June hack of U.S. State and Commerce Dept. servers ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing also infiltrated the email of U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink.