Mr. Obama announced that by 2025, the United States would lower emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels, “double the pace of reduction it targeted for the period from 2005 to 2020,” Mark Landler reports. Mr. Xi pledged that China would stop its carbon emissions from growing by or before 2030, in part by increasing the proportion of its total energy production that comes from cleaner sources to 20 percent.
The announcement raises questions about whether the two sides can meet their commitments, how strongly the United States Congress will resist Mr. Obama’s pledges and just how significant a breakthrough the deal represents. Politicians, environmentalists and climate experts weigh in:
Al Gore, former vice president of the United States:
Today’s joint announcement by President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping to reduce their nations’ carbon emissions is a major step forward in the global effort to solve the climate crisis. Much more will be required — including a global agreement from all nations — but these actions demonstrate a serious commitment by the top two global polluters.
President Xi Jinping’s announcement that Chinese emissions will peak around 2030 is a signal of groundbreaking progress from the world’s largest polluter. President Obama’s commitment to reduce U.S. emissions despite legislative obstruction is a continuation of his strong leadership on the issue.
By demonstrating their willingness to work together, the leaders of the United States and China are opening a new chapter in global climate negotiations. This bold leadership comes at a critical time for our planet when the costs of carbon pollution affect our lives more and more each day.
Mitch McConnell, Republican leader of the United States Senate, in comments reported by McClatchy:
Our economy can’t take the president’s ideological war on coal that will increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners. This unrealistic plan, that the president would dump on his successor, would ensure higher utility rates and far fewer jobs.
Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California:
Now there is no longer an excuse for Congress to block action on climate change. The biggest carbon polluter on our planet, China, has agreed to cut back on dangerous emissions, and now we should make sure all countries do their part because this is a threat to the people that we all represent.
Joanna Lewis, associate professor of science, technology and international affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service:
The announcements from the United States and China are aggressive and significant — and the timing couldn’t be better. The joint announcement will likely build momentum ahead of the G-20 meetings and the next round of the U.N. climate negotiations in Lima in December, and hopefully lead to similar announcements by other countries.
China’s announcement that its emissions will peak by 2030 or earlier is on the earlier side of when recent modeling studies out of both the U.S. and China have demonstrated that an emissions peak could occur. Such a peak year is dependent on coal use also peaking likely several years in advance of any CO2 peak. While this will be difficult for China to achieve, all signs point to declining coal use, driven in part by pressures to control air pollution. Questions remain, however, about at what level China’s emissions will actually peak. A higher peak emissions number likely means a higher emission burden and a more difficult task to prevent dangerous climate impacts.
China’s new goal of 20 percent of primary energy coming from nonfossil sources by 2030 is an important piece of understanding how China will achieve an emissions peak, and is a sign of continued expansion of renewable energy, along with hydro and nuclear.
Li Shuo, senior climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia:
The two biggest emitters have come to the realization that they are bound together and have to take actions together. Over the past months, communications between Beijing and Washington on climate change have been carried out in a very extensive manner. This extensive engagement highlights a clear sense of collective responsibility.
However, both sides have yet to reach the goal of a truly game-changing climate relationship. There is a clear expectation of more ambition from these two economies whose emissions trajectories define the global response to climate change. Today’s announcements should only be the floor and not the ceiling of enhanced actions.
Andrew Steer, president and chief executive of World Resources Institute:
It’s a new day to have the leaders of the U.S. and China stand shoulder-to-shoulder and make significant commitments to curb their country’s emissions. They have both clearly acknowledged the mounting threat of climate change and the urgency of action. It’s heartening to see this level of cooperation, with climate change at the top of the agenda for the world’s top emitters.
The U.S. and China should be commended for putting their initial pledges on the table so early. This should inject a jolt of momentum in the lead up to a global climate agreement in Paris.
The U.S. target shows a serious commitment to action and puts the U.S. on a path to reduce its emissions around 80 percent by mid-century. This pledge is grounded in what is achievable under existing U.S. law. However, we should not underestimate the potential of innovation and technology to bring down costs and make it easier to meet — or even exceed — the proposed targets.
China’s pledge to increase non-fossil fuel energy and peak emissions around 2030 as early as possible is a major development — and reflects a shift in its position from just a few years ago. But it will be very important to see at what level and what year their emissions peak. Analysis shows that China’s emissions should peak before 2030 to limit the worst consequences of climate change.
Frank Jotzo, director of the Center for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University:
It’s less than would be required for truly ambitious global climate change action, but don’t forget that this is an official commitment, and I would expect that it means that the Chinese government is relatively confident that they will achieve this. That leaves the door open to doing better than a peak in 2030. This will require further strengthening of the Chinese policy effort on all fronts — in terms of energy efficiency for the economy and in taking carbon out of energy supply.
They want to change course, and not continue on that trajectory of ever-increasing resource and environmental pressure. What it means for coal is that coal use in China will have to decline well before the peak date for CO2. Why is that? Because you’ve got oil use on an increasing trajectory, because of increasing road transport and increasing aviation. And you’ve got increasing gas use. The thing that has to give in that equation is coal. Coal use will have to decline, and probably decline significantly, well ahead of that peak date.
It’s not something that you can leave to, say, 2025 and then suddenly turn the lever and start declining. It’s the supertanker that needs to change direction, and if you want to change direction 10 kilometers down the track, you better start turning the steering wheel pretty significantly right now. You’ve got this enormous persistence of the established infrastructure. To some extent, changing course for the Chinese energy supertanker is a little easier than for countries that are growing slowly, because so much energy capacity is added every year.
Wang Yi, specialist in environmental and climate change policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences:
There are many studies that have concluded that, with efforts, around 2030 is a reachable goal. In setting an emissions peak goal, we have to consider the cost. China could reach a peak next year, but then we couldn’t develop at all. You have to ask: What will the cost be, can you handle it, what technological means will you use, do you have the funds and the laws to support the goal?
It’s a goal we can reach, but it will require work. If it were earlier, the cost for China would be too heavy. The biggest difficulty is that the demand will still be there. Urbanization won’t be completed, industrialization won’t be over and there will still be these large regional disparities. The eastern regions will be quite developed, but there will still be poverty in the center and west.
If you want to peak in 2030, then you have to have a goal for 2020, and that goal needs to be allocated to the provinces.
Wang Tao, an expert on climate and energy issues at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy:
I see room and possibility for China to peak its CO2 emissions well before 2030, and that’s because I think the annual improvements in energy intensity and carbon intensity of energy supply are feasible, and can be achieved with the kind of policy effort that the Chinese government seems to be prepared to put in.
It’s not that surprising that they gave this goal, but what surprised me is that they are willing to give this target before the official commitment deadline for Paris. They could have had all these reasons to keep this to themselves longer for the negotiations and use it as a card to play at some point. I think that this could create good momentum, because last month the E.U. has come out with their target, and the U.S. has now announced a target, and China has also come out with its target. So that’s the three big emitters all making their commitments.
None of them are ambitious enough, I think. For all three big economies, their targets could still be improved. But this is a good stage for them to keep collaborating for higher targets in the future.