Top two polluters, China and US, ratify climate deal
Obama, Jinping unite to jump-start global efforts to cut emissions.
HANGZHOU, China — President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally joined a sweeping global agreement to cut greenhouse gases Saturday, moving the world toward a dramatic reduction in climate-warming emissions on a quicker time frame than previously imagined.
The ratification of the accord by the world’s two biggest polluters, being announced after the leaders meet here, jump-starts enactment of the landmark deal reached last year in Paris that commits virtually every country to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and slowing irreversible harm to the planet.
“There’s still a lot of work yet to be done,” cautioned Brian Deese, a top White House climate and energy adviser.
But he described the announcement as a beacon for
the rest of theworld.
“Part of the reason why both President Obama and President Xi wanted to do this together and do this with ample time left in the year was to provide confidence to other countries.”
The joint proclamation by Obama and Xi cements their nations’ commitments quicker than either side
thought possible when the pair agreed in 2014 to a plan to cut carbon, which was designed to serve as a model for the larger accord.
The Paris agreement, named for the site of the United Nations summit where itwas agreed upon in December, reflects each nation’s individual promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the ultimate goal of limiting global temperature rise.
Though the final pledge fell short of its target of 2 degrees Celsius, it calls for signatories to regularly report on and revise targets to build in ambition for further progress, as Obama has said.
Backed by almost 200 nations, the pact would go into force when 55 countries representing 55 percent of the world’s emissions give their formal assent.
Only 23 other nations that account for about 1 percent of global emissions had done so before the U.S. and China joined in ratification. Together, the two nations emit nearly 40 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide, and their pledges represent the most significant stride toward the pact taking effect.
In the U.S., some Republican lawmakers question the role of humans in causing global warming, while others oppose Obama’s climate change agenda for what they see as placing heavy burdens on business and threatening energy interests like coal.
As a result, the president’s negotiators helped shape the Paris accord so it would not be defined as a treaty, which would require support from two-thirds of the Senate and legislative approval in other countries aswell.
But without enforceable provisions, the deal is symbolic, said Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a prominent climate change skeptic.
“This is another attempt by the president to go around Congress in order to achieve his unpopular and widely rejected climate agenda for his legacy,” the Republican lawmaker said last week ahead of the ratification.
The U.S., under its commitments as part of the accord, will seek to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions more than a quarter by 2025, or to 28 percent below their 2005 level.
But ratification does not ensure the U.S. will be able to follow through on its promise. The primary mechanism to achieve that, the Clean Power Plan, is under legal challenge.
For China, ratifying the Paris agreement was in some ways a natural decision, experts say — the initiative dovetails with the country’s domestic effort to clean up its air pollution, and lends its leaders international prestige.
China hit an environmental turning point in 2011, when a wave of horrific air pollution in Beijing sparked a popular backlash.
Since then, China has become a world leader in renewable energy investments, introduced a plan to control pollution and accelerated adoption of a nationwide carbon trade market, due to open next year.
Public support has been high, said Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based nonprofit Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.
“In the West, where… you can drink from the tap, it’s much harder to get the public behind you,” she said.
“But in China, the air, the water, all these concerns about safety from pollution, have created a public opinion in favor of environmental protection.”