Climate security

While America Launches Missiles, China Quietly Leads On Climate Change

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday for his first face-to-face meeting with President Trump, including a two-day summit and formal dinner. By the end of the trip, the two are set to discuss the North Korean threat and trade, before the Trump team retreated to launch Tomahawk missiles at Syrian airfields. Climate change isn’t on the agenda, which is unfortunate—if not surprising—because the two nations are now taking precisely opposite approaches to the global crisis. 

This divergence follows a period of unlikely and hard-fought accord. For an unprecedented half decade, the world’s two biggest economies and largest greenhouse gas emitters actually worked together to tackle climate change. Two years ago, the historic joint diplomatic efforts of then-Secretary of State John Kerry with America’s lead climate negotiator Todd Stern and their Chinese counterparts will be remembered as the deal that set the table for the Paris Agreement.