US, China call for climate action, renew carbon neutral pledge

US President Joe Biden has opened an international climate summit saying that the United States “isn’t waiting” to lead on an issue of “moral and economic imperative”, as his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, renewed Beijing’s pledge of being carbon neutral by 2060.

As part of his vision for a green economy, Biden announced that by 2030, the US aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half of the 2005 level.

“That’s where we’re headed as a nation, and that’s what we can do if we take action to build an economy that’s not only more prosperous but healthier, fair, and cleaner for the entire planet,” Biden said.

The White House, however, has yet to roll out specific actions in order to fulfil Biden’s pledge.

In his speech, he urged other world leaders present in the virtual summit, to take action in their own countries, saying that no nation can solve the impending crisis on its own.

“All of us, particularly those who represent the world’s largest economies, we have to step up,” he said, stressing the importance of addressing an “existential crisis of our time”.

“Science tells us that this is the decisive decade. This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis.”

Welcoming the US’s “return to the multilateral climate governance process”, Chinese President, Xi Jinping renewed his pledge for China to become carbon neutral by 2060, as he urged other leaders to take “unprecedented ambition and action”.

He first made the carbon neutrality pledge during the United Nations General Assembly meeting last year.

“China will scale up its intended nationally determined contributions [to the Paris agreement] by adopting more vigorous policies and measures,” Xi said.

He stressed that Beijing will strictly control coal-fired power generation projects and limit the increase in coal consumption over the next five years.

Still, environmentalists have voiced alarm at China’s slow pace of retiring coal, which is the dirtiest form of energy but politically sensitive due to mining jobs.

Meanwhile, China leads the world in the deployment of clean-energy technologies. To reach net-zero emissions in less than 30 years, the country will have to increase and refine its efforts. That, in turn, will make them cheaper and enable other countries to set even more ambitious climate goals.

China has already launched a number of initiatives, such as green infrastructure and transport and finance as part of its Belt and Road initiative.

No global solution to climate change is likely without the US and China, since the world’s top two economies together account for nearly half of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

China and the US issued a joint statement a few days ago, pledging to cooperate with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis.

Aljazeera