“China is largely motivated by its strong national interests to tackle persistent air pollution problems, limit climate impacts and expand its renewable energy job force”, said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute. But they are a good start, and set China up to play a positive role at global climate change talks, rather than an obstructive one as some believed it had in Copenhagen.
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India, the fourth biggest emitter after China, the U.S. and the European Union, and with a share about seven per cent of global emissions, is still finalising its action plan.
The question, though, is whether China and other countries’ emissions cuts will be enough to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“Meeting a 50 per cent reduction target by 2030 is achievable entirely within Australia and without the need to buy carbon permits overseas”, she said. So, China will be reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by less than half the rate during 2020-2030 period, compared to 2010-2020 period, says the CSE analysis.
“Their emissions are likely to peak well before 2030 already (probably around 2025), but their gamesmanship on this point suggests they are reverting to their traditional recalcitrant negotiating posture ahead of Paris – a worrisome sign”, he said.
That is the implication of the country’s target to gradually de-carbonise its economy, published on Tuesday. Coal use also fell in 2014, the first time that’s happened in 14 years, indicating that China could be on the path to peaking earlier than expected.
Li, meanwhile, said the targets show “that China is exerting its utmost in addressing climate change, and that China is fully committed to playing an even greater part in global governance and in advancing common development of mankind”.
Australian climate groups on Wednesday welcomed China’s commitment, characterising it as a significant step forward by the most important player in the developing world. Over the 16 years to 2030, therefore, China’s forest stock pledge could see an additional 140MtCO2 absorbed by forests each year, slightly less than 10% of total Carbon dioxide emissions.s.
The climate action plan, dubbed the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDC, has been submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change based in Bonn, Germany.
Most analysts consider China’s target to peak emissions by 2030 as conservative given the dramatic shifts in its energy mix which have already taken place.
When climate talks faltered in Copenhagen in 2009, it was in part due to U.S. and Chinese reluctance to sign on to binding emissions cuts. National plans will be the building blocks of a Paris accord.
Wang Binbin, Manager of the Climate Change and Poverty Team at Oxfam Hong Kong, says: “We hope that China can implement its climate change adaptation policies specifically to help poor people when carrying out their INDC commitments. China’s example also underscores the huge global economic opportunity for all countries, developing and developed, in embracing a clean energy future”.
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China’s formal pledge came as the United States and Brazil, at a meeting of their presidents in Washington, both also promised to obtain 20 percent of their energy supplies from wind, solar, biomass or other non-hydropower renewables by 2030.
