Last week, Ann Carlson and Alex Wang, environmental experts at UCLA Law School, called the November 12 U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change “monumental.” “No two countries are more important to tackling the problem than the largest carbon emitter over the past two centuries, the U.S., and the largest current emitter, China,” they observed. The announcement—the outgrowth of bilateral discussions ongoing since the early days of the first Obama Administration—is likely to affect upcoming international negotiations, and, Carlson and Wang believe, could have “potentially profound domestic effects for both countries.” We asked additional ChinaFile contributors whether the deal was worth the wait. —The Editors