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The world's largest GHG emitters agreed to pursue additional
steps to reduce GHGs to meet the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting
global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but how it is implemented in
the coming months will be key.
Following talks in Shanghai on 15 and 16 April, China Special
Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua and his US counterpart John
Kerry signed a joint agreement to cooperate on
tackling the climate crisis.
The diplomats said the countries are "taking enhanced climate
actions that raise ambition in the 2020s in the context of the
Paris Agreement with the aim of keeping the above temperature limit
within reach and cooperating to identify and address related
challenges and opportunities."
They also agreed that both countries would develop long-term
strategies aimed at achieving carbon neutrality by the time the
United Nations' COP26 meeting on climate is held in Glasgow,
Scotland, this November.
The announcement came a day after President Joe Biden was able
to secure a similar agreement with Japanese
Prime Minister Hoshihide Suga on working together to address
climate change, amidst bilateral talks on a host of other issues
including the COVID-19 pandemic and security in the Asia-Pacific
region.
Kerry has been meeting with his counterparts in China, India,
South Korea, and the UAE ahead of the Leaders Climate Summit that
Biden is convening 22 and 23 April, to which representatives of 40
countries, including the world's largest GHG emitters, have been
invited. The goal of the summit is to raise climate ambitions and
enable the world to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement.
China emitted an estimated 10 billion mt of CO2 emissions in
2019, twice as much as the second-largest emitter, the United
States. Japan, ranked as the world's fifth-largest emitter of GHGs,
released 1.1 billion mt of CO2 emissions in that year.
'Seriousness and urgency'
Agreeing that the "climate crisis" needs to be addressed with
the "seriousness and urgency that it demands," Kerry told journalists in Seoul, "I
think this is the first time China has joined in saying it's a
crisis, and that it has to be addressed with urgency."
Both countries share the goal of raising climate ambitions and
agree on critical elements of what steps need to be taken, he said.
These include developing long-term strategies for reaching net-zero
emissions as well as maximizing international investment and
finance to help developing countries transition from fossil-fuel
intensive economies to low-carbon ones, and helping the summit's
goal of raising global climate ambition on mitigation, adaptation,
and support on the road to COP26.
Cautioning against reading too much into the "piece of paper,"
Kerry said, "the key are the actions that people take in the next
months, and we will work very closely to try to raise ambition
across the planet, and to work together to affect this transition
to the new energy economy."
Anna Mosby, IHS Markit principal research analyst on the energy
and climate scenarios team, agreed with Kerry's characterization
that China is showing leadership on climate action.
Long-term strategies?
Mosby was surprised, though, that both countries are planning to
develop their long-term strategies on reaching net zero-goals
before the COP26 meeting.
"We haven't seen anything out of either country indicating how
they will achieve net-zero goals for the economy," she said. China
has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and Biden has
pledged to get to the US to a net-zero economy by midcentury.
China in March released its 14th five-year
plan for its economy that for the first time has placed a heavy
emphasis on addressing the climate threat with an accelerated push
towards renewables and nuclear power. It does include a strategy
that takes the country through 2035.
In the US, Biden has released a jobs and tax plan that seek a
mix of tax incentives and grants to decarbonize the country. He
also has released a federal spending request for
fiscal year 2022 that includes an unprecedented $14 billion for
climate programs. However, the plans and budget request require
Congressional approval.
What's more, the US hasn't even yet announced its Nationally
Determined Contribution (NDC) since rejoining the Paris Agreement.
An NDC is each country's contribution under the treaty that is
updated every five years. The US is overdue to issue a new NDC to
show how what GHG cuts it plans to make to meet the treaty. The
prior NDC of 26-28% emissions cuts below 2005 levels that President
Barack Obama set in 2016 was rendered void after President Donald
Trump left the agreement officially in November 2020. An NDC is
each country's contribution under the treaty that is updated every
five years to show the progress made in meeting GHG cuts.
The US is expected to announce a new and
more stringent NDC than the prior one with an interim 2030 goal for
taking the country to a net-zero power sector at the Leaders
Climate Summit. Most environmental advocates and business groups
are clamoring for a 50% reduction by 2030, but analysts like Mosby
say that is "an aggressive goal."
They say there may be a risk in setting too aggressive of a GHG
target as the world will be waiting to see whether the US sets a
credible target, especially as it walked away from the Paris
Agreement in the not-so-distant past.
New climate partnership with Japan
In contrast to the cautionary note that Kerry sounded about the
US agreement with China, Biden was effusive about creating a new bilateral partnership to
address climate change with longstanding ally Japan.
"Japan and the United States are both committed to achieving
net-zero emissions by 2050, and we know to do that will require
setting and meeting our 2030 goals. And we'll work together to
advance clean energy technologies and help nations throughout the
Indo-Pacific region, especially developing countries, develop
renewable energies and decarbonize their economies," Biden said at a joint press
conference with Suga on 16 April.
Biden said Suga shares the US' goals of raising global climate
ambitions for all signatories to the Paris Treaty, but the joint
partnership does not mention it as explicitly as the one with
China. Suga also didn't bring it up in his remarks.
Posted 19 April 2021 by Amena Saiyid, Senior Climate and Energy Research Analyst