Washington D.C. — Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden released the following reaction to the groundbreaking U.S.-China climate announcement made tonight by President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping:
The United States and China have just turned the international climate change negotiation on its head. With this announcement, President Obama and President Xi have demonstrated historic leadership and shown the rest of the world that developed and developing countries can work together address the threat of climate change.
President Obama has made an ambitious pledge for 2025 that keeps the United States on track to cut its carbon pollution by 80 percent by 2050. China, for the first time, committed to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 at the latest and to do everything it can to peak even earlier. We can be sure the Obama administration will hold China’s feet to the fire on the latter half of that promise and keep pushing the Chinese to put even more ambitious carbon targets on the table between now and December 2015, and we hope the rest of the world will join in that pressure. China also just committed to significantly ramp up clean energy deployment to make non-fossil energy sources account for around 20 percent of its energy mix by 2030, up from 9.8 percent in 2013. That is a serious commitment to finally shift the Chinese economy away from coal. It is clear that the leaders of both countries are listening to the warnings from our leading scientists and taking decisive action.
I applaud President Obama for making climate change the pillar of the U.S.-China relationship and demonstrating exactly what a new model of cooperation can look like. This is great news for the United States, China, and the entire planet.
Center for American Progress experts have been at the forefront of this great bilateral effort. For recent American Progress reports on this issue, see:
To speak with a CAP expert, contact Katie Peters at [email protected] or 202.741.6285.
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