China, US praised for climate pledges

A senior French climate official has praised the leaders of China and the United States for recently reaffirming their determination to pave the way for a global deal at the upcoming United Nations climate conference in Paris near year's end.

"The recent climate statement of President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama is encouraging and it consisted of very important elements of an agreement, with strong words, on the way to decarbonization," said Laurence Tubiana, French climate ambassador, responding to a question from China Daily during an online briefing recently.

During Xi's visit to the US in late September, both leaders reaffirmed their commitments to reach an ambitious agreement at the Paris climate conference, while advancing domestic efforts and bilateral low-carbon cooperation. China and the United States are the heaviest carbon emitters.

China has pledged to lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60 percent to 65 percent from the 2005 level by 2030 and increase the forest stock volume by around 4.5 billion cubic meters from the 2005 level by 2030.

China also plans in 2017 to start its national emission trading system, covering key industry sectors such as iron and steel, power generation, chemicals, building materials, papermaking and nonferrous metals.

Among the pledges made by the US is reduction of its total carbon dioxide emissions by 26 to 28 percent over 2005 levels by 2025.

Their recent meeting was the second time in a year that Xi and Obama had made a joint climate announcement within one year. Last November, when they made their historic announcement in Beijing, China promised to make its carbon emission peak around 2030.

"The statement between the US and China is essential because it has shown the vision that this is a very serious issue and we really should put all our effort on that," says Tubiana.

She says Xi had reaffirmed the agreement with the US, which is a deep commitment to achieve a low-carbon economy in his country.

Apart from the efforts of China and the US, Tubiana says what she saw during the UN General Assembly in September has given her confidence that the Paris conference will be a success.

"In my opinion, we are already 70 percent there to achieving a global deal in Paris on carbon emissions control after 2020," she says. "This is the confidence the joint global efforts of the international community has given."

The Paris summit is scheduled to run from Nov 30 to Dec 11. She says a special pre-summit meeting may be arranged for Nov 8 to 10 to prepare the final key elements for leaders to endorse in Paris in early December.

Tubiana says the French government will invite top Chinese and US leaders to attend, though arrangements are not finalized.

In another development, 146 countries, representing almost 87 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, had submitted their intended national climate action plans to the UN before the Oct 1 deadline.

That means that over 75 percent of all member countries to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have responded. This includes all developed countries under the convention and 104 developing countries, or almost 70 percent of the convention's developing member states.

Over 80 percent of the plans include quantifiable objectives and also over 80 percent include intended actions to adapt to climate change.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, says over the past few months, the number of countries submitting their climate action plans has grown from a steady stream to a sweeping flood.

"This unprecedented breadth and depth of response reflects the increasing recognition that there is an unparalleled opportunity to achieve resilient, low-emission, sustainable development at the national level," says Figueres.

(China Daily European Weekly 10/09/2015 page16)