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China
and the U.S. unveiled agreements Wednesday on climate change. U.S.
Barack Obama's plan is bound to meet opposition at home and could have
an effect on the Keystone pipeline. Above is a photo taken Jan. 22, 2013
at a thermal power plant discharging heavy smog into the air in
Changchun, northeast China's Jilin province.
Photograph by: (STR/AFP/Getty Images file)
, Postmedia News
|
WASHINGTON
— The U.S.-China climate change agreement is being praised as a
political ground breaker that could isolate fossil-fuel producers such
as Canada and Australia while driving forward a renewable technology
agenda that will improve the global economics of clean energy.
The world’s two biggest economies and polluters announced Wednesday new post- 2020 carbon emissions reductions that they hope will inspire other countries to join in the lead-up to the United Nations climate negotiations in 2015 in Paris.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced in Beijing economy-wide emission reduction targets of 26 to 28 per cent of 2005 levels in 2025.
China’s commitments are more nebulous. It previously has announced it is slowing its growth of greenhouse gases. Now it has promised its emissions will peak “around 2030.”
It also aims to get 20 per cent of its energy from renewables. This would equal today’s U.S. electrical generation capacity and likely reduce the use of coal, which could lead to cleaner air in big cities now suffering critical smog problems.
“We hope to encourage all major economies to be ambitious — all countries, developing and developed — to work across some of the old divides, so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement next year,” Obama said.
Yet in terms of climate science and international norms, these commitments are not significant. Scientists say the U.S. would have to triple its targets to come even close to what is required to keep global temperatures below a 2 C increase.
Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, noted that the new targets, when converted to 1990 levels, are only about 15 per cent. This is far below the commitments from many other countries.
“So the United States has a lot more to do,” he said.
Yet on a political and market level, the joint U.S.-China announcement is significant. Coupled with cautionary signals from business leaders such as Mark Carney, the Canadian head of the Bank of England, about the future of fossil fuel, the overall meaning of this announcement is that clean energy is the way of the future.
“The market signal that these announcements send out will be one of the biggest ripple effects,” Jamie Henn of the climate change group 350.org said.
Carney is reported to have told a World Bank seminar last month that fossil-fuel companies are grossly overvalued because the dangers of climate change render the “vast majority” of their reserves “unburnable.”
So the squeeze is on Canada, Australia and other fossil-fuel economies. They could find themselves “forced into a corner when it comes to the ongoing negotiations in Paris because they will be the real anomalies of the developed world,” Prof. Ray Bradley, director of the climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, said.
Canada has pledged to follow U.S. emission targets but has fallen well behind its commitments as it tries to triple oilsands production.
“It will be hard for the administration to justify additional drilling, additional tarsands expansion though pipelines like Keystone because of the need to be on this (emission reduction) trajectory,” Henn said.
Obama’s announcement serves as a shot across the bow of the Republican Congress, which has vowed to block the Environment Protection Agency’s emission regulations.
The fact the new chair of the Senate environment committee is staunch climate-change denier Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma indicates that Obama is in for a fight.
“Senator Inhofe is a climate disaster,” Pica said. “He is bought and paid for by the oil industry and coal industry and that’s what he advocates on behalf of.”
The Senate’s future leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, was quick to condemn Obama’s targets, calling them job killers for the nation’s 89,000 miners.
“Our economy can’t take the president’s ideological war on coal that will increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners,” Sen. McConnell said in a statement.
“This unrealistic plan, that the president would dump on his successor, would ensure higher utility rates and far fewer jobs.”
Yet there’s not much the Republicans can do about it. Obama used his executive powers to impose the 2025 targets. The EPA will regulate them through powers of the Clean Air Act. Obama almost certainly would veto any changes to the act that would reverse his emission targets.
wmarsden@postmedia.com
The world’s two biggest economies and polluters announced Wednesday new post- 2020 carbon emissions reductions that they hope will inspire other countries to join in the lead-up to the United Nations climate negotiations in 2015 in Paris.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced in Beijing economy-wide emission reduction targets of 26 to 28 per cent of 2005 levels in 2025.
China’s commitments are more nebulous. It previously has announced it is slowing its growth of greenhouse gases. Now it has promised its emissions will peak “around 2030.”
It also aims to get 20 per cent of its energy from renewables. This would equal today’s U.S. electrical generation capacity and likely reduce the use of coal, which could lead to cleaner air in big cities now suffering critical smog problems.
“We hope to encourage all major economies to be ambitious — all countries, developing and developed — to work across some of the old divides, so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement next year,” Obama said.
Yet in terms of climate science and international norms, these commitments are not significant. Scientists say the U.S. would have to triple its targets to come even close to what is required to keep global temperatures below a 2 C increase.
Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, noted that the new targets, when converted to 1990 levels, are only about 15 per cent. This is far below the commitments from many other countries.
“So the United States has a lot more to do,” he said.
Yet on a political and market level, the joint U.S.-China announcement is significant. Coupled with cautionary signals from business leaders such as Mark Carney, the Canadian head of the Bank of England, about the future of fossil fuel, the overall meaning of this announcement is that clean energy is the way of the future.
“The market signal that these announcements send out will be one of the biggest ripple effects,” Jamie Henn of the climate change group 350.org said.
Carney is reported to have told a World Bank seminar last month that fossil-fuel companies are grossly overvalued because the dangers of climate change render the “vast majority” of their reserves “unburnable.”
So the squeeze is on Canada, Australia and other fossil-fuel economies. They could find themselves “forced into a corner when it comes to the ongoing negotiations in Paris because they will be the real anomalies of the developed world,” Prof. Ray Bradley, director of the climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, said.
Canada has pledged to follow U.S. emission targets but has fallen well behind its commitments as it tries to triple oilsands production.
“It will be hard for the administration to justify additional drilling, additional tarsands expansion though pipelines like Keystone because of the need to be on this (emission reduction) trajectory,” Henn said.
Obama’s announcement serves as a shot across the bow of the Republican Congress, which has vowed to block the Environment Protection Agency’s emission regulations.
The fact the new chair of the Senate environment committee is staunch climate-change denier Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma indicates that Obama is in for a fight.
“Senator Inhofe is a climate disaster,” Pica said. “He is bought and paid for by the oil industry and coal industry and that’s what he advocates on behalf of.”
The Senate’s future leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, was quick to condemn Obama’s targets, calling them job killers for the nation’s 89,000 miners.
“Our economy can’t take the president’s ideological war on coal that will increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners,” Sen. McConnell said in a statement.
“This unrealistic plan, that the president would dump on his successor, would ensure higher utility rates and far fewer jobs.”
Yet there’s not much the Republicans can do about it. Obama used his executive powers to impose the 2025 targets. The EPA will regulate them through powers of the Clean Air Act. Obama almost certainly would veto any changes to the act that would reverse his emission targets.
wmarsden@postmedia.com
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