There haven’t really been a whole lot of positive interactions between the United States and China in recent times, but one of the topics where some cooperation can be found between the two superpowers is under the concept of climate change.
Representatives from both countries traveled to Shanghai to conduct meetings regarding climate change and some positive news has resulted from those meetings. Both countries successfully came out of the meetings with the idea of strengthening the Paris Agreement for climate change.
This is a policy that former President Trump was strongly against because he believes that the United States was not being treated equally and that the economic losses that were being suffered were too significant. On the other side of the equation, fully supporting and strengthening the Paris Agreement in its previous form may not be the best overall option for the United States either.
The general goal for both countries after the meeting is to lower emissions and help to reduce the effects of climate change in the future. It is currently unclear when exactly the next meetings on climate change will take place between the two countries but it certainly seems like this won’t be the last meeting between the two country’s representatives.
Biden’s administration has certainly focused on climate change a bit more than Trump’s administration. Biden’s team seems to be less concerned with the economy and more concerned with political issues like climate change that don’t exactly have the country’s economic interests in mind.
At the same time, taking a full-economic approach like the Trump administration took is probably not the best idea either with the effects of climate change becoming apparent in certain regions around the world.
There are some reasons to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The correct course of action regarding climate change will likely require a well-balanced effort of creating environmentally-friendly jobs that are focused around reducing the effects of climate change. This means creating jobs for electric car companies, electric recharging stations, while also not completely fading out the oil industry all at once. A slow and methodical approach can be achieved but it’s currently unclear if the China-US meetings on climate change are going to result in anything actually getting done of significance.
China continues to be the least environmentally-friendly country in terms of climate change. The U.S. is hoping that these climate meetings will lead to a climate-friendly future that will support the environment in a positive way.
