Headline news: The US-China Climate Deal Chinese emissions rose by a striking 171 percent between 2000 and 2011 because of a rapid increase in energy consumption driven by strong economic growth. Coal has been dominant in Chinas energy mix, accounting for a large share of emissions from the electricity and manufacturing sectors. With further increases in coal consumption, Chinas emissions would likely continue to rise indefinitely. But China is already taking steps to change its emissions trajectory. At the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, China pledged to reduce carbon intensity (the ratio of carbon pollution to GDP) by 40-45 percent and to increase the share of non-fossil energy to 15 percent by 2020. At the 2013 Communist Party Plenum, China’s leaders committed to reduce coal’s share of primary energy below 67 percent by 2017 by implementing higher resource taxes or caps on coal use. Just last week, Chinas State Cabinet released details of plans to cap coal consumption at 4.2 billion tons in 2020, a limit that will require severe cuts in coal use in Beijing and other large coal-dependent regions. With the US-China climate agreement, more aggressive steps are in the offing. As part of the agreement, China raised its goal for non-emitting power sources (nuclear and renewables) to 20 percent of total energy production, to be achieved by 2030. check out more detail down below!! washingtonpost/opinions/robert-j-samuelson-climate-realities-in-light-of-us-china-agreement/2014/11/23/e5fdc7fa-719d-11e4-893f-86bd390a3340_story.html
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 07:56:57 +0000
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