Going green is more difficult than it sounds for the Dragon, writes Asia Sentinel’s Mark A. DeWeaver

Climate change was high on the agenda at the recently concluded fifth annual US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. A special session on the topic, held on the first day of the two-day summit, focused on low-carbon growth and green energy.

While there were no major breakthroughs, the two sides made non-binding commitments to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, factories, and heavy-duty vehicles. They also pledged to increase carbon capture, utilization, and storage; increase energy efficiency in buildings, industry, and transport; improve greenhouse-gas data collection and management; and promote smart grids.

The emphasis on the environment at this event was not surprising given that “going green” is now a hot topic in both China and the US. Unlike some of the other issues facing the two countries—cyber-espionage and Chinese maritime claims, for example—”saving the planet” is relatively un-contentious.

There is, however, no reason to expect any reduction in China’s enormous carbon footprint. Beijing has never been able to regulate emissions effectively and its green-energy priorities often do little more than encourage Potemkin environmentalism on the part of lower-level officials. Cooperation with the US will do nothing to make Chinese environmental policy more effective.

While China is often described as “centrally planned,” regulating pollution is generally left to local governments. They routinely fail in this task, allowing plants to operate without required air-pollution control devices or dump untreated effluents into China’s streams, rivers, and lakes. Because local officials’ performance evaluations put more weight on GDP growth within their jurisdictions than on any other single factor, promoting industry and investment invariably takes precedence over protecting the environment.

Central-government industrial policies requiring smaller, less energy-efficient plants to close have proved unenforceable. Local governments continue to promote highly polluting small-scale steel mills, cement kilns, and nonferrous-metals smelters, many of which use production methods that are decades out of date. Beijing’s periodic crackdowns on such producers have little long-term effect. Once the danger has passed, many of them restart their operations and similar new entrants may come on line as well.