Global Warming: The Impact of Asia's Giants

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Environmentalism inevitably takes a backseat to development in China and India, but even among many green advocates there, climate change is seen as a less pressing problem than air and water pollution. There is also a widespread feeling that the developed world, which grew rich while freely spewing carbon, should take most of the responsibility for climate change. "Our issue is that, first and foremost, the U.S. needs to reduce its emissions," says Sunita Narain, director of the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. "It is unacceptable and immoral that the U.S. doesn't take the lead on climate change." The Bush Administration, in turn, has rejected Kyoto partly because developing countries were exempt from emissions cuts.

The standoff between the U.S. and the Asian giants has stymied international climate-change efforts for years, but that is beginning to change--and some of the push is coming from Beijing. For most of the recent Montreal climate conference, the U.S. resisted any serious discussion of what should be done after Kyoto expires. But several major developing countries, including China as a quiet but present force, supported further talks and helped break down U.S. opposition. "At the moment, China seems more interested in engaging on this issue internationally than the U.S. does," says Elliot Diringer, director of international strategies for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

That's because China and India increasingly see climate-change policy as a way to address some of their immediate problems--such as energy shortages and local environmental ills--while getting the international community to help foot the bill. Thanks to poorly run plants and antiquated power grids, China and India are extremely energy inefficient. China uses three times as much energy as the U.S. to produce $1 of economic output. But that means there is a lot of room for improvement, and saving energy by cutting waste is less expensive than building new coal plants. It also reduces dependence on foreign energy and comes carbon and pollutant free. "Efficiency really is the sweet spot," says Dan Dudek, a chief economist at Environmental Defense. Beijing agrees: the government aims to reduce energy intensity--the amount of energy used relative to the size of the economy--20% by 2010.

Making ambitious pledges is easy--that is what five-year plans are for--but finding the will and the funds to make them stick is trickier. One source of funding is the Clean Development Mechanism, a part of the Kyoto Protocol that allows developed countries to sponsor greenhouse-cutting projects in developing countries in exchange for carbon credits that can be used for meeting emissions targets. Those projects don't require any technological breakthroughs. A 2003 study by the consulting firm CRA International found that if China and India invested fully in technology already in use in the U.S., the total carbon savings by 2012 would be comparable to what could be achieved if every country under the Kyoto Protocol actually met its targets.