India, for its part, has not yet formally set a date for when its emissions will peak, though it has announced goals for increasing the use of cleaner energy sources like solar power and slowing its growth in fossil-fuel consumption. “When it comes to climate change response, China is at a different stage than the U.S., Western nations and other developed countries.” Le Yucheng, China’s vice foreign minister, said last week. China’s argument is that it was slower to industrialize than the United States and Europe, and therefore needs more time to pivot away from fossil fuels like coal. If all those targets are met, an analysis by the Rhodium Group found, China’s emissions could level off close to current levels by the end of the decade, although the exact numbers depend on how rapidly the country’s economy grows.īut China is not yet committing to specific cuts before 2030. China has also laid out some concrete targets, such as getting one-quarter of its electricity from low-carbon sources like wind, solar or nuclear power planting vast new forests and curbing the use of hydrofluorocarbons, a powerful greenhouse gas used as a refrigerant. From that point, the country will then aim to get down to net zero emissions by 2060. Ultimately, however, there’s one climate metric that matters most: How quickly the entire world can get to zero emissions and halt the warming of the planet.Ĭhina, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged that its emissions will peak by around 2030. Canada also updated its climate goals, committing to a 40 percent to 45 percent cut below 2005 levels by 2030. Japan also announced it would strengthen its climate targets, aiming for what translates to a 44 percent cut below 2005 levels by 2030. Biden unveiled the pledge at a White House climate summit for world leaders, declaring that the United States is ready to reclaim a leadership role on climate change. An earlier baseline makes Europe look more ambitious, since it has been cutting for longer. The later baseline makes the United States target look a bit better, because it omits a period when emissions were rising. But European countries tend to measure their reductions from 1990, when emissions began falling across the continent as a result of early climate policies and the collapse of polluting Communist economies in the East. The United States has decided to measure its reductions from 2005, which is roughly when the nation’s fossil fuel emissions reached a peak. Charts reflect high end of emissions reduction pledges.Ĭomparing national pledges to cut emissions can be surprisingly tricky - a lot depends on the year you start counting from.
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