China surprised the world yesterday when president Xi Jinping that the country would “achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”.
Until now, 2020 has been an underwhelming year for action on climate change, with a major UN climate summit postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and . China’s new promise of long-term climate ambition is a shining bright spot, and significant for two big reasons.
First is sheer size. China overtook the US as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide , and now emits more than 10 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, meaning it accounts for about . That’s more than the US and India combined, . Crucially, while emissions in the EU and the US are already falling, in China they are still growing.
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The second reason is geopolitics. The US has been largely absent from international climate negotiations for the past four years of the Donald Trump administration, emboldening other countries that are regressive on climate change. Now, China is cementing its climate leadership role and sending a signal to other governments, businesses and investors.
Declaring a long-term climate goal before the US is a big deal. It shows China sees political and economic gain in leading the industries of the future, from battery manufacturing for electric vehicles, to making solar panels and wind turbines. Xi’s move also makes Trump’s attack on the same day – – ring hollow.
There was other notable news in Xi’s speech. One was to “aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030”, a modest tweak on its previous plans for a peak “around 2030”. That is good news but not a big ramping up of ambition: analysis last year suggested the country was already on track to peak before 2030, as its economy shifts from industry to services.
The Chinese president also promised a stronger carbon reduction plan (an enhanced version of a nationally determined contribution, or NDC in UN jargon). All countries that signed up to the Paris agreement have a deadline of submitting one this year. The EU last week it will submit a new NDC before the year is out, and żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ expects the UK to announce its new one on 12 December, the five-year anniversary of the Paris deal being reached.
Those three alone would mark an important shift in ambition for the NDCs this year because, until now, only 13 enhanced plans have been submitted, and none from major economies.
It isn’t all good news though, because we don’t know what Xi means by “carbon neutrality”. Will it be the same as the UK’s law to hit net zero (meaning any emissions are balanced out by carbon removal) by 2050? Will it allow the goal to be met by offsetting Chinese farming and heavy industry’s emission by planting forests in South America and Africa? Is it only CO2 emissions? Or all greenhouse gas emissions, a much more ambitious target?
You may also have noticed that 2060 is later than the , which aims to give us a chance of holding warming to 1.5°C.
Still, none of those buts undo the importance of Xi’s announcement. The move was welcomed and described as significant by everyone from the and the to , and the .
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