China, world’s top carbon emitter, offers few new climate targets ahead of U.N. summit
Smoke and steam rise from towers at a coal-fired power plant in western China.
(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)
ASSOCIATED PRESSOCT. 29, 2021
WASHINGTON —
China is offering no significant new goals for reducing climate-changing emissions ahead of the United Nations climate summit set to start next week in Glasgow, Scotland.
China, the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming, formally submitted its goals Thursday. The highly anticipated announcement includes targets previously established in speeches by President Xi Jinping and domestic policy documents.
On Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Xi would talk to global leaders at the summit by video link only. Xi has avoided foreign travel since before the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020.
China says it aims to reach peak emissions of carbon dioxide — which is produced mainly through burning coal, oil and natural gas for transportation, electric power and manufacturing — “before 2030.” The country is aiming for “carbon neutrality,” meaning no net emissions of CO2, before 2060
Joanna Lewis, an expert in China, climate and energy at Georgetown University, said the document submitted Thursday “gave more detail about [how] China will meet those goals,” through measures such as increasing its wind and solar power capacity and carbon-absorbing forest cover. “It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing that there wasn’t anything new” in terms of goals, Lewis said.
Climate experts say key questions about China’s future carbon emissions remain unanswered.
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“The document gives no answers on the major open questions about the country’s emissions,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki, Finland. “At what level will emissions peak and how fast should they fall after the peak?”
Nations participating in the U.N. climate conference submit what are called “nationally determined contributions,” or NDCs, that lay out emissions reduction plans.
It’s still possible that China may have additional announcements at the climate summit related to financing for renewable energy overseas, said Lewis.
China’s NDC is “consistent with everything that we’ve seen from Xi Jinping’s previous statements,” said Sam Geall, CEO of the nonprofit organization China Dialogue and associate fellow at Chatham House in London.
Column: Can humanity rise to the challenge in Glasgow and take some meaningful steps on climate change?
“It may not be enough to get us to 1.5 degrees, which is where we want to go,” he said, referring to the target set under the Paris Agreement of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
At the summit, Geall said he is looking to see countries take steps to “restore trust in the process” of climate negotiations, after widespread economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Promises on climate finance” — money pledged by rich countries to fund climate responses in developing countries — “are coming in far too late, far too small,” he said.
Ahead of Glasgow climate conference, India and China
dim hopes for reaching
sweeping deal
The hope that world leaders will reach a broad-reaching climate change accord in Glasgow, Scotland, to keep global temperatures from crossing 1.5 degrees Celsius of rise over preindustrial levels has continued to dim in recent days.
China, by far the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, announced Thursday that it would not go beyond previous commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 and to reach peak levels of carbon emissions by 2030. That means that at a time when scientists have warned that nations must commit immediately to reducing greenhouse gas emissions or suffer devastating extreme weather consequences, the world's biggest atmospheric polluter plans to continue apace for nine more years.
China's defiance ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, comes days after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres issued a personal appeal to President Xi Jinping to bolster the commitments made in Paris in 2015.
“I commend President Xi Jinping for announcing at the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly that China will end financing of coal-fired power plants abroad and direct support to green and low-carbon energy,” Guterres said. “We must do everything possible to keep the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement alive. I appeal for China’s presentation of an ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution in the run-up to COP-26 in Glasgow.”
On Wednesday, India, the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, flatly rejected calls to set a deadline to achieve net-zero emissions.
“It is how much carbon you are going to put in the atmosphere before reaching net zero that is more important,” Indian Environment Secretary R.P. Gupta told reporters.
While the U.S., Britain and the European Union have all pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the devil is in the details. Meanwhile, the fate of the climate change measures contained in President Biden's infrastructure and spending bills remained in doubt as he left for Europe on Thursday.
The biggest weapon Biden had to meet the clean energy provision was stripped from the Democrats’ framework by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
Just six of the G-20 nations have updated their emissions targets ahead of Glasgow, and a new report released this week found that another six, including the U.S., failed to meet their old ones.
A report by the United Nations Environment Program released this week found that, given current emissions pledges, the world was poised to see 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming, and that a 55 percent cut in overall emissions was needed to keep temperatures from rising beyond the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.
“We have eight years to make the plans, put in place the policies, implement them and ultimately deliver the cuts,” Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, said in a statement. “The clock is ticking loudly.”
The lack of action has left many climate scientists doubtful that the Glasgow conference will yield a new and effective agreement that keeps temperatures from crossing the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold.
ROD McGUIRK
Wed, October 27, 2021,
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia on Thursday ruled out promising to cut methane emissions by 30% by the end of the decade in a stance that will add to criticism that the country is a laggard in addressing climate change.
Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor announced his government’s decision before he was to fly with Prime Minister Scott Morrison to a U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
The United States and the European Union pledged in September to the 30% methane reduction target.
Taylor said the only way Australia could achieve that target would be to reduce numbers of cattle and sheep.
“At present, almost half of Australia’s annual methane emissions come from the agriculture sector, where no affordable, practical and large-scale way exists to reduce it other than by culling herd sizes,” Taylor wrote in The Australian newspaper.
“What activists in Australia and elsewhere want is an end to the beef industry,” he added.
Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and liquified natural gas. The gas and mining sector account for almost one third of Australia’s methane emissions.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said his Nationals party, the conservative government’s junior coalition partner, had insisted Morrison not commit to reducing methane at the Glasgow summit, known as COP26.
Inaction on methane was one of the conditions the rural-based Nationals had placed on support for Morrison’s Liberal Party’s target of net zero emissions by 2050.
“The only way you can get your 30% by 2030 reduction in methane on 2020 levels would be to go and grab a rifle, go out and start shooting your cattle because it’s just not possible,” Joyce said.
But Meat and Livestock Australia — a Sydney-based producer-owned company that provides marketing, research and development services to over 50,000 cattle, sheep and goat farmers — said the Australian red meat industry was pursuing its own net zero target for 2030.
“This target means that by 2030, Australian beef, lamb and goat production, including lot feeding and meat processing, will make no net release of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere,” the company website said.
Morrison’s net zero deal with the Nationals means he cannot budge from Australia’s 6-year-old target of reducing emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Scientists agree Australia’s 2030 targets are among the weakest in the developed world. The United States has committed to reductions of between 50% and 52% below 2005 levels. Britain has pledged to cut emissions by 68% below 1990 levels.
Critics argue that Morrison’s plan to achieve net zero without imposing costs on households or businesses will not achieve the target and contains no measures to wean the Australian economy off fossil fuels.
Morrison and Joyce appeared to contradict each other on Thursday over the extent to which the agricultural sector will bear the burden of transitioning to net zero.
When Joyce was asked if he was certain that agriculture had been excluded from the net zero plan, he told reporters: “Absolutely, 100%.”
Morrison backed Taylor who earlier this week said the government’s policy was to reduce emissions across the entire Australian economy.
“I have no misunderstanding. It’s a whole-of-economy emissions reduction plan,” Morrison said. “That’s the policy agreed by Cabinet.”
Joyce said the net zero deal had also included a government commitment to create a “fund to support people in regional Australia.”
But neither Joyce nor Morrison would say how much the fund would cost.
Morrison said policies to “invest in rural and regional Australia” would be announced before the next election, which is due by May.
Via AP news wire
Wed, October 27, 2021
India Climate (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
The solution to climate change is not setting net zero carbon emissions targets as dozens of nations have done, India’s federal environment minister said.
Instead, rich countries need to acknowledge their “historic responsibility" for emissions and protect the interests of developing nations and those vulnerable to climate change, said minister Bhupender Yadav.
India — the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States — is committed to “being part of the solution” at the upcoming United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Yadav said.
India is among the few countries on course to reach its targets for curbing the release of planet-warming gases. But a UN-backed report published Tuesday said the country had “significant room” for more ambitious goals, which it has yet to provide to the UN climate agency.
Asked about newer targets, Rameshwar Prasad Gupta, India’s top environmental official, said that “all options were still on the table.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending a Group of 20 summit scheduled for this weekend in Rome, then the summit at Glasgow, known as COP26.
Yadav stressed that India had reached its climate targets without the promised financing from rich nations. The cost of meeting the targets is estimated to be $2.5 trillion, a 2019 finance ministry document said.
Although India is now a top emitter of greenhouse gases, it has historically contributed only 4% of total emissions since the 1850s.
Gupta said that “net zero in itself isn't a solution,” since cumulative emissions were the cause of the climate problem. He said countries need to focus on how much carbon is put in the atmosphere while getting to that goal.
Developing nations need space to grow and assistance — and without it, they are faced with a choice of compromising on development or relying on dirty fuels, he said.
But India's dependence on coal — it's the world's second-largest user of fossil fuel and has vast reserves — is likely to continue.
Electricity demand is expected to soar — and while the overall share of energy from coal will keep coming down, Gupta said weaning the country off coal at this point would impact its energy security.
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