中国环境资源法学评论(2007卷)

Framework of China-U. S. Partnership
       to Address Global Warming
                         Mary Christina Wood *
I．Introduction
     In June, 2007, leading climate scientists issued a report concluding that the
Earth is in "imminent peril  "(i)They warn that runaway climate heating will impose
catastrophic conditions on generations to come. It threatens to destroy major plane-
tary fixtures, including the polar ice sheets, Greenland, the coral reefs, and the
Amazon forest. It will bring floods, hurricanes, heat waves, fires, disease, crop
losses, food shortages, droughts, and cause extinctions of up to 70% of the world's
species.   It could kill millions of Earth's citizens, force massive human refugee
migrations, and pose an unending threat to world security. In the words of leading
scientists, our continued carbon pollution will cause a "transformed planet. "
      The world has only a narrow window of time to begin reversing global emis-
 sions of carbon before our planet passes a "tipping point" whereby dangerous feed-
back loops will unravel the planet's climate system--despite any subsequent carbon
reductions achieved by Humanity. Many climate scientists now warn that continued
use of coal will destroy the very conditions that have supported human civilization
for the last 10,000 years.
     As nations enter a new chapter in climate negotiations, they search for a
framework of international obligation that is clear, compelling, and responsive to
the urgency facing the world, yet one that can build upon the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed in 1992. A deeply
rooted principle manifest in most countries of the world provides the beacon for
such a framework. Under the public trust doctrine, the atmosphere is a natural as-
set that all nations share as common property. All nations are "trustees" with a
duty to protect  the atmosphere for present and future generations.
      United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has called upon the United
States and China--the world's two biggest polluters--to take bold action to reduce
carbon.    This article urges a partnership between China and the United States in
which the two nations join as sovereign trustees of the atmosphere to lead the world
in an urgent energy transformation on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. It pro-
poses a world-wide moratorium against coal development, and recovery of natural
resource damages from private corporations that have polluted the atmosphere with
greenhouse gases. Such damages should be used for immediate investment into al-
teruative energy systems and technology for the developing nations as partial com-
pensation for their disproportionate conservation burden.
      Part II of this article describes the threat of global warming. Part III confronts
the reality that coal is no longer a viable long-term source of fuel. Part IV presents
the trust obligation that defines government's responsibility to protect the atmos-
phere. Part V brings this trust responsibility within the UNFCCC framework. Part
VI proposes world-wide moratorium against coal development and recovery of natu-
ral resource damages for atmospheric pollution.
II.The Precipice
     A. Buildup of carbon
     Through its greenhouse gas emissions, Hu