China- the ultimate real laboratory?

Environmental diplomacy has proven that it is here to stay. It is an uber-relevant issue that concerns every human being on this planet. It is said that President Obama discusses the issue of climate change with every political leader that he meets. The G-8 summit is not solid without an agenda item on the threats against our environment. However, many green activists argue that environmental diplomacy is a cause without concern (see http://www.aicgs.org/documents/environmentaldiplomacy.pdf).

I found an interesting journal discussing two processes of globalisation taking place at the sae time.

1. The process of economic globalisation that is induced by the worlds industrial corporations
2. The process of ecological globalisation pushed by world’s environmentalists (Ibid)

The first point is driven by the northern markets and those sources are now drained. This has subsequently put us in a position were we are desperate to find new markets.
The second point pushes states, NGOs, MNCs and green activists to find competitive advantages in large scales. This has been made possible by the explosive growth of technology.

At the same time, ecological globalisation is being pushed by the fact one’s production and consumption have escalated to the stage where what one does in one country can reap severe repercussions for someone in a neighbouring country.

China is dominating trade and has become a pivotal player to climate change. Innovation is key and Chinas increasing demand for energy is growing at a faster speed than ever before whilst the US worries those greenhouse gas regulations will stand in the way of an already fragile economic growth.
New and innovative clean technology is building great hope for future low-carbon growth but most has yet to reach the public and once they do that introduces a new task of making them lucrative in order for them to drive down costs. This results in them doing very little to compete with traditional fossil fuels.
Chinas unprecedented domestic market provides the basis in which they could be the ultimate real world laboratory for experiments in clean energy innovation with potential winning ideas reproduced on a scale large enough to drive down costs worldwide (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-firger/hus-washington-visit-and-_b_809134.html).

Now to bring it back to diplomacy, it is the responsibility of worldwide diplomats to work as pressure groups to further encourage China to take their responsibility serious. There are discussions regarding potential sanctions if China does not fully engage in its potential to help fight climate change.



Also see: http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/EnvironmentandStatecraftbarrettJune9th.pdf