China Approves of Cap-and-Trade

The strongest argument against a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions (or its cousin, the carbon tax) is that emissions wouldn't actually fall; they'd just be exported to China. To some extent that's already happening, but the trend of heavy industry moving to low-regulation, high-pollution countries would only increase if the US imposed caps on its domestic carbon emissions. "We'd love to do it," is the standard delaying rhetoric, "but there's no point in doing it unless China does it too".

Well, it looks like China just might call these people's bluff, and sign on to a cap-and-trade system itself.

As Charles Komanoff reports, the governments of Brazil and China jointly commissoned a report which has come down in favor of some kind of carbon tax or cap-and-trade system. In the foreword, Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, says this:

Concerted efforts should be mounted for improving energy efficiency and reducing the carbon intensity of the world economy, including the worldwide introduction of price signals for carbon emissions with consideration of different economic and energy systems in individual countries.

This is the clearest indication yet that China is serious about climate issues – quite possibly more serious, in fact, than the US. It's good news, and signals that China might not be quite as much of a problem on this front as the pessimists would have it. Of course, there will still be fights about the degree to which China should cap its own carbon emissions given that the problem was caused not by China but by Europe and the US. But in principle, it seems that China is aware of the need to be involved, and that's an excellent start.

Update: David Roberts tells me to slow down, saying that "China has been signaling its concern about climate change for years" without actually doing anything about it.