US and China strike historic deal on climate change

The United States and China have announced an historic deal to reduce their greenhouse gas output, with China agreeing to cap emissions for the first time and the US committing to deep reductions by 2025.

 

The deal, which is reported to have been negotiated in secret between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jingping, provides an important boost to international efforts to reach a global deal on reducing emissions beyond 2020 at a United Nations meeting in Paris in December 2015.

 

China, which is the world's the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has agreed to cap its output by 2030 or earlier if possible. Previously China had only ever pledged to reduce the rapid rate of growth in its emissions. Now it has also promised to increase its use of energy from zero-emission sources to 20% by 2030.

 

The United States has pledged to cut its emissions to 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025.

 

Commenting on the deal, the UK's Daily Telegraph said: "The importance of this week’s agreement between these two economic behemoths to clean up their act cannot be overstated - a low-carbon world suddenly seems possible. In particular, it means that an elusive multinational deal on combating global warming might actually be agreed at a summit in Paris next year after many years of failure."

 

The European Union has already endorsed a binding 40% greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by 2030. (See link.)

 

Speaking at a joint press conference at the Great Hall of the People, Obama said (reported in The Guardian): “As the world’s largest economies and greatest emitters of greenhouse gases we have special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change. I am proud we can announce a historic agreement. I commend President Xi, his team and the Chinese government for their making to slow, peak and then reverse China’s carbon emissions.”

 

Xi Jinping said: “We agreed to make sure international climate change negotiations will reach agreement as scheduled at the Paris conference in 2015 and agreed to deepen practical co-operation on clean energy, environmental protection and other areas.”

 

China’s target to expand energy from zero-emission sources to around 20% by 2030 was “notable”, a White House statement said. “It will require China to deploy an additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of nuclear, wind, solar and other zero-emission generation capacity by 2030 – more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today and close to total current electricity generation capacity in the United States.”

 

The UN’s climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said: “These two crucial countries have today announced important pathways towards a better and more secure future for humankind.”