Limiting US And Chinese Emissions: The Beijing Agreement

Abstract

In a landmark agreement reached in Beijing on November 11, 2014, US President Obama and his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping announced plans to limit future emissions of greenhouse gases from their two countries. President Obama’s commitment was for the United States to emit 26% to 28% less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005, a target more ambitious than one he had announced earlier (in 2009) that would have called for a decrease of 17% by 2020. The prior target would have required a reduc¬tion in emissions at an annual average rate of 1.2% between 2005 and 2020. The more recent agreement dictates a faster pace, at least in the later years, 2.3%– 2.8% per year between 2020 and 2025. The longer term goal for US climate policy, announced at the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in 2009, is to reduce emissions by 83% by 2050 relative to 2005. President Xi’s commitment in Beijing was that China’s emissions would peak by 2030, if not earlier, and that nonfossil sources would account for as much as 20% of China’s total primary energy consumption by 2030. As indicated in the fact sheet released by the White House describing the agreement (http:// www.whitehouse.gov/ the- press- office/ 2014/ 11/ 11/ fact- sheet- us- china- joint- announcement- climate- change- and- clean- energy- c), Xi’s pledge would require “China to deploy an additional 800–1,000 GW of nuclear, wind, solar, and other zero emission generation capacity by 2030— more than all of the coal- fired plants that exist in China today and close to total current electricity generat¬ing capacity in the United States.” in a landmark agreement reached in Beijing on November 11, 2014, US President Obama and his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping announced plans to limit future emissions of greenhouse gases from their two countries. President Obama’s com¬mitment was for the United States to emit 26% to 28% less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005, a target more ambitious than one he had announced earlier (in 2009) that would have called for a decrease of 17% by 2020.