Wildfires in Lake County, California, August 2020 The past few years have seen a heated debate among U.S. politicians and analysts about whether the United States should “decouple” from China by severing the supply chains, trade relationships, and financial links that bind together the world’s two largest economies, transforming a one-world economy into two separate spheres of influence. Among American officials and scholars, the debate mostly centers on whether the security benefits of decoupling would offset its economic costs . That framing, however, ignores what should be a major factor in determining the best course of action—a factor that tips the balance against decoupling and in favor of continuing to foster engagement between Washington and Beijing. That factor is climate change. Without taking into account the risks posed by catastrophic, irreversible environmental damage, it might be possible to conclude that, on balance, decoupling from China would be in the […]