US, China Emission Targets More Like ‘Business as Usual’
In an attempt to accelerate negotiations for an international climate treaty the United States and China announced their respective mitigation measures. While the American climate negotiators will propose a tentative target of reducing carbon emissions by 17% by 2020 from 2005 levels, China will propose a reduction of 40-45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2020.
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Although these measures have been welcomed by climate experts around the world it is important to explore how, if any, significant impact they will have on the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate adverse impacts of global warming.
Being two of the biggest polluters, China and the United States, shared the burden and responsibility to make extra efforts to push for an international treaty. While both waited for the other to make a move they eventually, and with mutual agreement, announced mitigation measures which are quite ‘unprecedented’ as none has ever agreed to any kind of carbon reduction targets in the past.
The US will propose emission reduction of 17% by 2020 from 2005 levels which means a mere 4 percent reduction from the Kyoto target which uses 1990 as the base year. The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol even though it is a signatory of the treaty which called for an average 6 percent reduction in carbon emissions produced by developed countries by the end of the commitment period i.e. 2012. The emission target that President Obama will be proposing would cut the country’s emissions only by 4 percent. That means that what the EU-15 achieved through Kyoto Protocol in 8 years the United States would not be able to achieve even in 20 years.
The Japanese government had announced similar targets by changing the internationally agreed up on base year of 1990 to 2005. While the numbers looked pretty the actual reduction would have been very less thus after drawing flak from the international community the Japanese Prime Minister announced better emission targets.
China announced voluntary carbon targets of reducing carbon intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020 which means that it would generate less carbon emissions for every unit of its GDP. Now China is already working to improve its industrial efficiency and has been able to reduce the carbon efficiency by 3.5 percent year-on-year during the first half of 2009.
China has been voluntarily taking significant steps to improve energy efficiency while reducing environmental pollution since the 2008 Olympics which brought to light the poor air quality of the country. Additionally, the party seems to have taken strong note of a slew of pollution related incidents which have occasionally spilled over to neighbors Russia and Japan.
And while a substantial portion (almost half) of that target is expected to be achieved within the first five years one has to wonder if China could achieve some real carbon emission reduction with a slightly more sincere approach.
While the targets are voluntary the funding will come from developed countries with no clear policy on external monitoring or reporting yet. Again the question arises why a country with a trillion dollars in foreign reserves has to depend on international aid to implement projects which it is sustaining or has the capability to sustain on its own. Other developing countries like India, Brazil and Indonesia too have proposed voluntary mitigation measures with international monetary help as riders.
With so many preconditions and tweaks in the emission targets themselves one has to wonder if the respective governments would show sincerity to work towards achieving voluntary or mandatory emission targets.
Photo: yunheisapunk (Creative Commons)
The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.
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About the Author
Mridul Chadha currently works as Head-News & Data at Climate Connect Limited, a market research and analytics firm in the renewable energy and carbon markets domain. He earned his Master’s in Technology degree from The Energy & Resources Institute in Renewable Energy Engineering and Management. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering. Mridul has a keen interest in renewable energy sector in India and emerging carbon markets like China and Australia.
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