Obama & China President Xi Jinping Unveil CO2 Emission Reduction Targets

November 12th, 2014 by Sandy Dechert

In a follow-up to the major agreements between the United States and China announced this morning, here’s more detail on the climate change issues the two world leaders discussed. They have had constructive dialogue on these points for several years, and The New York Times reports that the agreements culminated from talk over the past nine months. The new announcements by the two nations, which generate 45% of the world’s pollution, should spearhead commitments from other nations in advance of and during the upcoming world summit in Peru.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

President Xi Jinping of China spoke first. Although he did not set a specific target for emissions, he committed his country for the first time ever to curbing greenhouse gas output by 2030 and reducing it thereafter.

Xi is running true to his promises at September’s New York climate meeting that China would soon set its peak for carbon emissions and achieve carbon efficiencies by 2020. The Chinese government has recently put some restrictions on utility operators and declared penalties for power company officials who do not heed them.

President Barack Obama is presented with a bouquet of flowers by a young Chinese girl upon arrival at Capital International Airport, Beijing, China, Nov. 10, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama announced a planned reduction of US greenhouse gas emission levels between 26% and 28% by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. The pledge doubles efforts currently being made in this nation. The US should be capable of meeting this target, despite Congressional post-election rumblings.

Renewable Energy

Mr. Xi committed China to producing 20% of its power by 2030 from clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power. According to CNN, American officials concurred that the solar and wind initiatives and incentives discussed would save US consumers billions.

United Nations Talks in Lima this December

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, tweeted earlier about the good news:

Breaking news! US and China announce #climatechange targets. Clear leadership ahead of #COP20Lima.

— Christiana Figueres (@CFigueres) November 12, 2014

Global climate change discussions by the international community will resume in Peru several weeks from now in the final talks of 2014. Nations will negotiate there over drafts of the Paris accord for next year. I will be reporting on the talks live from Peru for CleanTechnica and Planetsave.

Yesterday, the UN released elements of the draft agreement in preparation for the Lima Conference of Parties. At that time, Ms. Figueres said:

“What is emerging now is a clearer and more coherent picture of the Paris agreement 2015. [It] is gratifying is that instead of waiting to the last minute, governments are coming forward with creative and cooperative suggestions—which, alongside the momentum for change happening in every corner of the globe, bodes well for the next 12 months.”

UNFCCC Agreements to be Finalized in Paris, December 2015

Mr. Xi reportedly told media after the announcements by the presidents that “we agreed to make sure that international climate change negotiations will reach an agreement in Paris.” Mr. Obama voiced a similar commitment.

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Tags: China, china co2 emissions, China CO2 emissions reduction target, China President, China renewable energy target, China renewable energy target 2025, china us, Christiana Figueres, Lima Conference of Parties, Obama, UN, UN Paris, UNFCCC, UNFCCC Paris, US, US CO2 emissions, US CO2 emissions reduction target, US CO2 emissions reductions, Xi Jinping

About the Author

Sandy Dechert covers environmental, health, renewable and conventional energy, and climate change news. She's worked for groundbreaking environmental consultants and a Fortune 100 health care firm, writes two top-level blogs on Examiner.com, ranked #2 on ONPP's 2011 Top 50 blogs on Women's Health, and attributes her modest success to an "indelible habit of poking around to satisfy my own curiosity."

eveee

The number of comments on this is … disappointingly low. It is significant. These leaders follow, not lead, trends already in existence. Those interested in reducing CO2 are buoyed with hope by a signal that the two most intransigent nations have changed course. Yet China increasing CO2 until 2030 is unacceptable. We can’t afford it.

Its like rats stuck at a dead end in a maze. Our philosophy is to let everyone pursue their own interests and assume that will work. Has it? No.

We are on the brink of discovering that exponential growth does not work and that there needs to be collective understanding and action to respond to climate change and resource depletion. These issues are heightened by the very philosophy we hold so dearly, that all can mindlessly pursue self interest, oblivious to the dangers of getting stuck at a dead end in the maze.
Matt

In the current lower growth pattern since the great economy disruption. Get political statement of this type made are important. Will change happen faster yes.The key is that they are taking a stand on the pro-clean side instead of econ growth and freak the environment
Ronald Brakels

The big news here is not China has chosen a specific date by which they will cap emissions, the actual 2030 target is not at all ambitious and going by current trends China could peak much sooner with little difficulty. The big deal is that China has promised to cap its emissions at all. In the past the ruling party of China would not let themselves get pinned down. They wanted to keep their options wide open. But now they agreed to a hard cap it’s a huge change politically. While targets can always be improved they are definitely not going to want to make themselves look bad by going backwards. (That’s Australia’s job.)
Michael G

I checked out SEIA’s press release on this which includes some interesting factoids:

97% of US hydro dams don’t yet generate power.

DoE expects to quadruple wind generation by 2020.

Biomass could replace 30% of US oil conssumption.

More here:
http://www.seia.org/news/seia-embraces-efforts-double-renewables-worldwide-2030
Adrian

Amazing how easy the deals become once the politics catch up to economic facts on the ground. New dirty energy is now more expensive than new clean energy, without even considering externalities.

Now our job is to keep the new regieme here in the US from subsidizing dirty incumbents to a cost below the price of cleantech.
- Larmion
  
  Amazing how easy a largely symbolic deal becomes you mean.
  
  The American deal is significant, but not much more than what is achievable through measures already enacted such as stricter fuel consumption standards and limits to coal plant emissions combined with cheap natural gas and some renewables.
  
  As for the Chinese side: that’s even more laughable. Hydropower already generates about 15-20% of electricity demand, so the renewable electricity target can be achieved through business as usual.
  
  And emissions rising until 2030 is an affront. Chinese emissions per capita are already close to most European nations; 15 more years of rising emissions could wreck the climate beyond all repair.
  - JamesWimberley
    
    The new target is, according to Climate Progress (link), 20% of all energy, not electricity. The current renewable share is 9.8%, which has to double. Since renewable electricity has only a quarter of the waste of fossil fuels (see LLNL energy flowcharts), the target means that about 40% of useful energy will be renewable. Because of this automatic shift, it’s very misleading to look at primary rather than useful energy in transition scenarios,
JamesWimberley

China’s peaking emissions only by 2030 is of course not nearly enough. The important thing is that for the first time China has accepted an absolute cap, not just a reduction in carbon intensity. It’ shard to see how the régime could survive increasing air pollution for 15 years. The usual Chinese procedure is to announce a soft target as a signal of a policy change, then ratchet it, as has happened with many successive increases in renewable energy targets. Since China’s coal consumption fell in the first half of 2014 (link), and evs are making great progress. overall emissions will surely peak well before 2030 even on current policies.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  Politically China’s stance has been to keep all options open, including horrendous things like coal to liquid fuel. But economically and practically, China is on track to reducing emissions well before 2030, provided they don’t go all Tony Abbott on us. (Fortunately pulling an Abbott is not going to be sustainable for anyone in the world for long, including Tony Abbott.)
- Calamity_Jean
  
  China has contracted with Russia to buy Siberian natural gas starting in 2017 after they get a pipeline built. This tells me two things: China is desperate to cut their air pollution, and they are serious about limiting carbon emissions.
  
  Much of the pollution in Chinese cities is from apartment building heating plants that burn coal. If they are converted to gas, China will have smaller carbon emissions for the same number of warm apartments and the air will be cleaner. As the air clears up, existing photovoltaic installations become more productive. Of course, the apartment buildings will eventually need to stop burning gas for heat, maybe after 2030.
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    Do we know if China has started a push for more building efficiency? The quickest way to cut coal use for heating would be to stop heat loss.

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