China climate announcements turn tables on Congress foes

A joint statement to be released following Friday’s summit between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping aims to flesh out how their two countries plan to achieve targets for cutting emissions set at a bilateral summit in Beijing previous year.

“The significant and new climate finance pledges made by China is a game changer in worldwide climate politics”, said Li Shuo, senior climate analyst with environmental watchdog Greenpeace.

The announcement will come when Xi meets with President Obama in Washington.

Launching a national carbon trading program by 2017 that will cover all key industrial sectors. There is growing recognition on the Indian side that the old argument about western nations having an economic headstart and being done and dusted with polluting while arresting teh growth of developing nations is not sustainable anymore, even though India is one among the lowest per-capita emitters. He is the Developing Countries Climate Action Manager for the World Resources Institute. Partly as a result of this and other issues, wind curtailment rates this year have reached 20% and more in some provinces. Another program will prioritize the use renewable energy on the grid.

The announcement marks a significant achievement for the White House, which has worked to convince China to reduce pollution and invest in green power technology. If the U.S. and China can agree on the urgency of tackling climate change, the world should find it possible to forge a successful deal in Paris.

In a new commitment to battle climate change, China plans on enacting laws in 2017 that would put a limit on carbon emissions in the country, as well as charging companies that exceed those limits for a permit to do so.

Controlling and phasing down HFC emissions. “Following Pope Francis’ call for moral leadership on climate change, the time is now for the U.S. Congress to make good on President Obama’s commitment to the Green Climate Fund to help poor and vulnerable countries grapple with the challenges of climate change“. If the two countries can go hand in hand in the fight against global warming, the rest of the world might follow suit.

In China, the State Council announced in May 2014 that it would strengthen domestic management of HFC emissions and accelerate the destruction and replacement of HFCs, focusing first on subsidizing the destruction of HFC-23, a powerful greenhouse gas that is the by-product of the manufacture of HCFC-22. Meanwhile, to reduce its carbon emissions, the unreservedly capitalist USA of A.is relying on regulations issued by a centralized bureaucracy.

But for now, they just have to get through it – with loads of energy and grace. China affirmed that the share of public transport in motorized urban travel will reach 30 percent by 2020, a goal also found in China’s INDC. This is critically important for reducing both carbon emissions and urban air pollution. Today (Sept. 25) it announced the creation of a nationwide carbon-trading program.

China, the world’s biggest polluter, is about to put a price on the carbon it emits.

The European Union has also said it would cut its emissions 40 percent by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.

Ban highlighted the considerable commitments made by each country.

This blog was coauthored by NRDC China Climate and Energy Project Director Alvin Lin.