What about China?
Yes, it’s the world’s biggest emitter. But there’s more to that question than meets the eye.
Last September, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood behind a lectern emblazoned with the slogan “long-term decisions for a brighter future”. It was an incongruous message, accompanying a speech that weakened UK climate commitments. The policy changes Sunak unveiled that day would also push up costs for consumers and damage the investment case for businesses.
One of the arguments Sunak used to make his case was straight from the net zero sceptic playbook. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” he asked, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?” He pointed out that China’s emissions were up 300% since 1990, while the UK’s had fallen almost 50%.
Westminster watchers interpreted Sunak’s flirtation with net zero scepticism partly as the real Sunak coming into view, and partly as a political move. The Conservative Party was languishing in the polls and some voters were being enticed rightward to the Reform Party. Reform, too, deploys the “only 1%” argument - alongside its wilfully ignorant rejection of climate science.
As a political move, it was pretty pointless. Pollster Scarlett Maguire told Politico that net zero isn’t a priority for the 2019 Conservative voters being courted by Reform. Public opinion expert Rachel Wolf told me the same thing. And Sunak’s speech did nothing to improve his party’s prospects.
But that wasn’t the first time someone had asked “what about China?” in the context of the UK’s climate policy - and it won’t be the last. On the face of it, the numbers are stark: the UK’s annual emissions are puny by comparison with China’s. It is logical to question whether the UK’s carbon reduction efforts matter at all. And, as writer, broadcaster and strategist Sepi Golzari-Munro told me on the Political Heat podcast, this comes up all the time with journalists. They “like to question what they see as the orthodoxy about taking climate action”.
If you’re concerned the UK is wasting its time on the path to net zero, fear not. As I’ll elaborate in the rest of this post, there are four reasons why we should keep doing our bit to tackle climate change. First, the UK has contributed substantially to the problem, so is morally obligated to act. Secondly, we’ve made important headway on the solutions - and could keep doing so, with the right policies in place. Thirdly, if we press pause on net zero, we miss out on a stack of benefits. And finally, it’s how you build momentum for progress amongst an international community of sovereign nation-states.
1. Fairness
If you’ve made a mess, you should clean it up. This idea underpins the “polluter pays principle” of international environmental law, and it’s an instinctive moral argument.
China is the biggest polluter today, and it should absolutely be getting more of a grip on its contribution to the climate crisis. Indeed, its emissions are still rising and aren’t projected to peak until next year, 2025. It is still mining coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, and building new coal plants.
And yes, the UK “only” produces 1% of global emissions these days. But if you were to give a climate action pass to every country emitting at that level, that would amount to one-third of global emissions. Every tonne of CO2 matters. No country, not even China, can solve climate change on its own.
What’s more, the way the atmosphere works means that carbon emitted hundreds of years ago is still heating the planet today. Historical emissions matter as well as current emissions, and the UK - being the home of the Industrial Revolution - has the eighth largest cumulative emissions. (The USA is by far the biggest on this metric, and, as Sepi points out, China is “not a close second”.)
2. Impact
Another good reason why the UK matters to climate action is that, when people here have put their minds to it, they’ve come up with smart solutions to the problem. The world needs solutions and they have to start somewhere. If you saw a house was on fire and you were holding a water hose, you’d use it regardless of whether or not you started the fire.
There are two classic examples. The first is the Climate Change Act, which was a world first (side note - there’s a great episode of the Political Heat podcast coming soon on how it came about, with Baroness Bryony Worthington who campaigned for and then drafted the Bill). It has served as a model for similar legislation in numerous other countries such as France, Mexico and New Zealand.
The second example is the UK’s leading role in developing the global offshore wind industry. A dry-sounding yet innovative policy, contracts for difference, drove down the cost of capital. Geography also helped, with plenty of coastline and a relatively shallow sea due to the gently sloping continental shelf. Progress far exceeded expectations. For years the UK had more installed capacity than any other country, until in 2021 - you guessed it - China leaped ahead.
An advanced economy with strong academic, policy and financial institutions, the UK is well placed to continue to innovate. The Energy Systems Catapult has set out the novel technologies needed for net zero, which haven’t yet become commercially scalable and replicable. For example, those that can enable long duration energy storage, or negative emissions. The UK must put in place new plans, incentives, regulations and investments if it is going to remain a leader in net zero tech and business.
And what about China? It’s in the solutions game too. China accounts for half the world’s renewable capacity and has the world's largest market for electric vehicles.
3. Benefits
But all this discussion about who should take responsibility is, in an important sense, so 1990s. When net zero sceptics ask “what about China?” they reveal their own outdated assumptions about the nature of prosperity and security in the twenty-first century.
Two or three decades ago, the moral argument for climate action was the main show in town. That’s no longer the case. For example:
The independent review commissioned by the Truss government, and completed under Sunak, concluded that net zero is the “growth opportunity of the 21st century”.
In the report mentioned in the previous section, the Energy Systems Catapult argued net zero innovation in the UK would “create economic opportunities in global markets”.
The energy minister Lord Callanan has pointed out that the government spent £50bn last winter subsidising energy bills “because of the cost of imported gas”. Whereas using heat pumps powered by UK electricity would make us more secure.
If the UK hadn't scrapped successful policies to support insulation and solar energy, or delayed more ambitious climate policies for new homes, heat pumps, EVs and renewables, most households would be saving hundreds of pounds a year on energy costs.
The British public gets this. Polling shows that all demographics - young, old, swing voters, the various socioeconomic groups, etc - fear the costs of inaction on climate much more than the costs of action.
4. How global change happens
The fourth big reason why the UK matters is to do with the nature of climate change - and what it takes to address this planetary problem.
You might have heard climate experts talk about the importance of the “area under the curve”. This phrase refers to the graph of emissions over time. The line has been climbing alarmingly, year by year, and needs to peak and fall to net zero. The area under the curve represents total emissions - the driver of climate change. The bigger the area, the more our climate changes. So the higher the curve climbs, the steeper the fall will need to be (more on this here).
Time matters. Every tonne of CO2 matters. We worsen the problem if we stand around, waiting for others to move first.
The good news is that the first three reasons for moving towards net zero, set out above, all play into a positive, reinforcing dynamic that gets other countries going in the same direction. When those who’ve done most to cause the problem start to address it, that leadership gives them moral authority to encourage others to do the same. And it means they can stand with the most impacted countries - from the Global South and small island states - in powerful collective calls for action. When deployment of net zero technologies makes energy cheaper and more secure, it’s easier for other countries to adopt them. Success stories are powerful too.
Tell those asking “what about China?” that it’s not an either/or situation. The answer is both/and. China matters, and the UK matters too. So does the rest of the international community, come to that.
P.S. For more on the difference that international diplomacy makes, look out for a Political Heat podcast episode coming soon. I’ll be talking with Camilla Born, who held the pen on the strategy for COP26, the UN climate talks hosted by the UK in 2021.
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Listen to the full interview with Sepi Golzari-Munro wherever you get your podcasts. Find it here.