CFR Update: United States and China Sign Climate Agreement

Daily News Brief November 12, 2014

Top of the Agenda

United States and China Sign Climate Agreement

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping struck an ambitious climate deal (NYT) to cut carbon emissions on Wednesday after the two leaders met on the sidelines of the APEC summit. Obama set a new, more aggressive target to reduce emissions, and Xi announced China's first commitment to stop emissions' growth by 2030. The agreement by the world's top polluters is likely to inject new momentum (FT) into global climate negotiations, which have stalled since 2009. Washington and Beijing also agreed to cut tariffs (Time) on high-tech goods.

Analysis

"Barack Obama and Xi Jinping surprised even the closest climate watchers last night when they jointly announced new emissions-cutting goals for the United States and China. This is a serious diplomatic breakthrough after years of unsuccessful efforts to do something big and joint that goes beyond clean energy cooperation and gets to one of the most sensitive parts of climate policy," writes CFR's Michael A. Levi.

"This is also a milestone in the United States-China relationship, the outcome of a concerted effort that began last year in Beijing, when State Councilor Yang Jiechi and I started the United States-China Climate Change Working Group. It was an effort inspired not just by our shared concern about the impact of climate change, but by our belief that the world's largest economies, energy consumers and carbon emitters have a responsibility to lead," writes Secretary of State John Kerry in the New York Times.

"No progress was going to happen without the world's two biggest polluters, the US and China. The deal they have struck has the potential to end the stand-off that doomed efforts to sign a global deal in Copenhagen in 2009. That coalition of the unwilling is now becoming a coalition of the willing," writes Damian Carrington in the Guardian.

U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change | The White House official release

Related: John Kerry: Our Historic Agreement With China on Climate Change - NYTimes.com John Kerry: Our Historic Agreement With China on Climate Change

Related: China’s Environmental Goals Won’t be Hard to Hit - WSJ - WSJ the goals themselves hewed closely to the economic trajectory Beijing has charted under existing environmental policies, environmental watchdogs and analysts said. Under the terms of the announcement by Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama , China will increase its share of nonfossil fuels in total energy consumption to around 20% by 2030, and carbon-dioxide emissions will peak — or start decreasing in annual absolute volume — around that year. That is roughly in line with the government’s five-year plan, or broad development blueprint, in 2013, which set a target for nonfossil fuels to account for 15% of China’s energy mix by 2020. Such fuels refer to renewable energy like hydropower, wind and solar energy.

Related: McConnell: US-China deal ‘unrealistic’ | TheHill Senate Minority Leader [soon to be Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wasted little time Tuesday night in blasting President Obama’s climate agreement with China as another costly, unpopular environmental move. “Our economy can’t take the president’s ideological war on coal that will increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners,” McConnell said in a statement minutes after the White House announced the bilateral deal.

Related: Politicians and Climate Experts React to U.S.-China Emissions Deal - NYTimes.com Al Gore: 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.