The Importance of the U.S.-China Pact on Climate Change

Last night, Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping made a historic agreement to curb climate change.

President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would move much faster in cutting pollution, with a goal to reduce by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. Earlier in his presidency, Obama set a goal to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country's emissions are still growing as it builds new coal plants, didn't commit to cut emissions by a specific amount. Rather, he set a target for China's emission to peak by 2030, or earlier if possible. He also pledged to increase the share of energy that China will derive from sources other than fossil fuels.

I know, you're sitting there saying, so? So here's the importance of this deal. First off, this is a more ambitious set of cuts to carbon emissions by America than we've really ever done. President Obama's previous goal was 17% cuts by 2020. This is a much larger cut, and means an even larger investment into green energy.

We are the big dog in polluting, sure, but China is where it's important. China is still developing and industrializing. They are the polluter that is growing, so to get them to the table at all was crucial. By setting a goal and a cap date, President Xi Jinping just changed the entire discussion of our environmental future. From the White House email:

Building on the progress we've already made, the U.S. will set a new target of cutting our net greenhouse gas emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. And President Xi announced new plans to increase the share of renewable energy and nuclear power that China uses to roughly 20% by 2030 -- up from only 8% in 2009 -- and, for the first time, set a target for when China will max out its carbon emissions.

The U.S. and China together account for more than a third of global greenhouse gas emissions -- so together, we have an especially important role to play in fighting climate change.

Or, to more succinctly put this, from Crooked Timber's post "Planet Saved... In Brisbane":

It’s hard to overstate the significance of the agreement announced today by Barack Obama and Xi Jinping to limit US and Chinese greenhouse gas emissions. The limits are significant in themselves: not enough to guarantee stabilization of greenhouse gas levels at the agreed target of 450 ppm, but enough that we can get there just by ratcheting up an existing agreement rather than by looking for something new.