Climate announcement is ambitious — but is it a deal?
WASHINGTON — The announcement of new carbon emission targets Wednesday in Beijing isn't really an agreement — much less a formal treaty or even a protocol. It's not legally binding, and the details are vague.
Instead, the United States and China simply agreed to agree.
"I wouldn't even call it a deal. It's a joint announcement," said Elliot Diringer, the executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. "It's ambitious, but it will require more."
The announcement does set the stage for a bigger agreement — one that would be specific and enforceable — when world leaders meet in Paris next year to hammer out reductions in carbon emissions.
The United States agreed Wednesday to reduce its carbon emissions by up to 28% over the 20 years beginning in 2005. China agreed to begin reducing its emissions by 2030 or sooner, and to increase its use of non-fossil fuels to at least 20% of its total consumption over the same time.
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Even Obama and his Chinese counterpart were careful to couch the agreement in diplomatic, rather than substantive, terms.
"By making this announcement today, together, 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," President Obama said in announcing the deal in Beijing.
Wednesday's announcement provides "a very strong impetus for an agreement in Paris," Diringer said. "But what standing if any will these numbers have under international law? How will countries be held accountable? Those are issues that will have to be resolved in Paris."
"This is like turning a supertanker. You have to start the turn now in order to get there by 2030," he said.
A report released last month by the environmental group Greenpeace showed that China's coal consumption actually dropped by 1% to 2% over the first nine months of the year compared to 2013. That compares to the 5% to 10% annual increases earlier last decade.
Meanwhile, the use of coal to generate power in U.S. power plants has also declined, as many utilities have shifted to cheaper natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency.
The United States and China are the world's two biggest sources of carbon pollution, which scientists say is the biggest contributor to climate change.
"It's a game changer on two fronts," said Jeremy Symons, the senior director for climate policy at the Environmental Defense Fund.
The first is a diplomatic breakthrough. "That's going to put a jolt of energy into global climate cooperation. But the other impact — and the one that hasn't gotten as much attention, is that it's going to give a real boost to clean energy markets, and the pace of solar and wind and other clean energy techs getting into the marketplace."
With the price of gasoline and natural gas falling, there hasn't been much incentive for companies to invest in alternative sources, Symons said. An announcement of stricter carbon limits within the next 10 to 15 years "is a pretty clear signal of the direction of where the world Is heading," Symons said.
The two countries also agreed to joint research on a wide variety of clean energy technology, from clean cars to solar power smart power grids. Much of the announcement simply extended or enhanced cooperation already under way, but Diringer said those projects are important in building trust and goodwill between the two countries.
One new development is a carbon capture project, to be based in China, that will study the ability to inject carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into a deep saline aquifer, and create clean drinking water as a byproduct. "If we're going to solve the problem of existing fossil fuels, that's an absolutely critical technology. It's really important that both countries work hard to advance that," Diringer said.
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