U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has commended the U.S- China joint statement on climate change, which stresses on both countries’ post 2020 carbon emission targets.
The Secretary-General called this agreement “as an important contribution to the new climate agreement to be reached in Paris next year.”
Through the statement, Secretary-General also urged all major economies to follow China and the United States’ lead and announce ambitious post-2020 targets as soon as possible, but no later than the first quarter of 2015.
The joint statement issued by President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping details a number of post-2020 actions on climate change that will transform their respective country to low-carbon economy. It also aims to strengthen bilateral collaboration between the two countries to fight climate change.
With a global temperature target of 2oC, the U.S intends to reduce its emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level in 2025 while China intends to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030.
“Today, China and the United States have demonstrated the leadership that the world expects of them. This leadership demonstrated by the Governments of the world’s two largest economies will give the international community an unprecedented chance to succeed at reaching a meaningful, universal agreement in 2015,” a statement from the Secretary-General office said.
The collaborative initiatives undertaken by the U.S and China include: expanding joint clean energy research and development; advancing major carbon capture, utilization and storage demonstrations; enhancing cooperation on HFCS; launching a climate-smart/low-carbon cities initiative; promoting trade in green goods; and demonstrating clean energy on the ground.
Rajani Baburajan