How Australia and China could save the planet

If we are to survive, we need an unprecedented level of cooperation, no matter how unlikely. Mark Beeson writes.

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE is failing. Nothing highlights this fact more dramatically than our collective inability to adequately address the degradation of the natural environment. Finding a solution to an unprecedented problem of this size and complexity will be difficult at best. Frankly, these are not the best of times.

Even if climate change could be addressed in isolation, it would still present a formidable challenge. But when you’re part of something polycrisis When issues intersect with the capacity to amplify other more pressing, politically sensitive economic, social, and strategic issues, the prospects for effective collaborative action become even more remote.

In fact, polycrisis makes it increasingly difficult to know which of the many threats to international order and individual well-being we should focus on. “We” in this case is usually taken to mean the “international community,” which is always difficult to define, often more of an aspiration than a reality, often more notable for its absence than for its effectiveness.

nation statesOn the contrary, they can still act even if we don’t always like what they do. The most important example right now is, of course, the administration of the US President. Donald Trump. Since it is still the most powerful country in the world by every measure, what America does is bound to affect everyone. Therefore their actions climate change – withdraw from the group Paris Agreementeviscerating Environmental Protection AgencyPromoting fossil fuel companies – very important.

But nation-states can also be forces for good, not just for people living within the borders of countries in the wealthy global North. Rather, states that oversee a reduction in CO₂ Their emissions not only help themselves, they also help their neighbors and set a useful example of:good international citizenship”.

When global governance fails and is actively undermined by the Trump regime, it is even more important that other countries seek to fill the void, even if that means collaborating with the most unlikely of partners. Australia and China could offer a truly different approach to mitigating climate change, while also defusing tensions in the Indo-Pacific and demonstrating that resistance to the Trump agenda is indeed possible.

Friends with benefits

In the long term, if there is still a threat, environmental degradation remains the clearest threat to our collective future, especially in Australia, the world’s driest continent. Yet Australia’s strategic and political elites are consumed by the putative military threat posed by China rather than the immediate, life-threatening impact of simultaneous drought, fire and floods.

One of the only positive aspects of the climate crisis is that it presents a common threat that should, in fact, create a common cause. Some countries are undoubtedly more responsible for the problem and more capable of responding effectively, so they really need to overcome the logic of this problem. first mover disadvantage. There is no doubt that another country will take over the Australian coal market, but someone needs to show that change is possible.

China is probably at greater risk from water scarcity than from the impact of climate disasters, and paradoxically enough rising sea levels This will eventually threaten huge urban centers such as Guangzhou and Shanghai. While there is much to admire in the reduction of poverty in the People’s Republic, this terrible cost to the natural environment. China also has strong reasons to change course.

Unfortunately, Chinese policymakers, like those in Australia and their counterparts elsewhere, are preoccupied with more traditional threats to national strategic and economic security. This may be understandable enough in a world turned upside down by an unpredictable administration determined to create a new international order that puts America first and trashes the environment in the process.

But in the absence of the United States and the international community’s customary forms of leadership, states must try to do what they can, even if it means contemplating the unthinkable and working with conceptual enemies. China and Australia truly have a common goal when it comes to the environment, and they can and should act on this issue.

Yes, this all seems very unlikely. But if we want to survive in something like a civilized state, something unprecedented cooperation levels It seems an inevitable part of limiting the damage our current policies do to the environment. In this context, Australia and China can truly lead the way by agreeing to implement coordinated local actions designed to set a good example and address a critical global problem.

Leading by example

Australia and China, two of the largest consumers and producers of coal, could make a huge contribution to a global problem that will almost certainly earn universal praise, if not disbelief. In short, China could agree not to build any more coal-fired power plants, and Australia could commit not to open any new mines and move to quickly close existing ones.

This will undoubtedly be challenging for both countries, but this is the kind of action needed if we are to take the climate challenge seriously. There are no easy and painless solutions. But voluntarily switching away from the use of one of the most polluting fossil fuels is a potentially feasible and effective gesture that will make a difference. After all, China is a world leader There is already great progress in the development and use of green energy, so the transition is difficult but doable.

Australia’s one shameful record They can live without exporting their carbon emissions and without the coal industry that produces most of them. Coal is not extracted employ many people and Australia is a rich enough country to compensate those affected by the loss of crappy jobs in a dirty industry. If Australia can find $368 billion for submarines that will probably never arrive to counter a completely imaginary threat from China, it must also find several billion dollars to deal with a real threat.

There will undoubtedly be a serious retreat coal industry lobbyists and politicians who think their future depends on being “realistic” even if it means destroying the planet. And yet it is possible, even likely, that such actions by Australia and China will be very well received by regional neighbors who will directly benefit from their actions and who may themselves be encouraged to consider meaningful cooperative actions.

Given the failure of regional organizations ASEAN To overcome these problems, normative pressure can be useful.

China may even achieve a significant increase in its soft power and regional prestige. Minister Xi Jinping “He often talks about the need for development.”ecological civilizationMoving away from coal and collaborating with an unlikely partner for the collective good could be an opportunity for China to demonstrate its commitment to the idea and deliver much-needed environmental leadership.

If this isn’t an example of what Xi said win-win diplomacyIt’s hard to know what happened.

A sustainable world order?

In the absence of a US Senator Bernie Sanders ” he callsrevolution“Multilateralism in American foreign policy may be in terminal decline. In fact, it is an open question whether interstate cooperation can survive another four years of Trumpism, especially as the United Nations faces a threat. financing crisis Politics in the European Union is similarly populist and authoritarian aspect.

Cooperation between Australia and China could send a useful message to the Trump regime and other countries around the world about both the possibility of developing alternatives to failed American leadership and the institutional order it has worked so hard to create. American hegemony He was mostly self-serving, violent, and seemingly indifferent to his impact on the global South, but we may miss him when he’s gone.

If multilateralism is likely to become less effective in the foreseeable future, perhaps minilateralism or even bilateralism could provide an alternative path to cooperation. Narrowly conceived conceptual strategic threats can be usefully “separated” from economic and environmental variations. In such cases, geography can be a better guide to potential partners than sacred notions of so-called friends and enemies.

Someone, somewhere, needs to show leadership on climate change and revive hope that at least one problem, the biggest problem we collectively face, is being taken seriously. There is actually no choice but to consider unprecedented actions for an unprecedented problem. Australia and China may not save the world, but they can make things a little less bad and inject much-needed creativity and hope into international politics.

Mark Beeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. He was previously Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.

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