26/09/2020

Climate Change: China Aims For 'Carbon Neutrality By 2060'

BBC - Matt McGrath

China's President Xi Jinping addressing the UN via video link. EPA

China will aim to hit peak emissions before 2030 and for carbon neutrality by 2060, President Xi Jinping has announced.

Mr Xi outlined the steps when speaking via videolink to the UN General Assembly in New York.

The announcement is being seen as a significant step in the fight against climate change.

China is the world's biggest source of carbon dioxide, responsible for around 28% of global emissions.

With global climate negotiations stalled and this year's conference of the parties (COP26) postponed until 2021, there had been little expectation of progress on the issue at the UN General Assembly.

However China's president surprised the UN gathering by making a bold statement about his country's plans for tackling emissions.

He called on all countries to achieve a green recovery for the world economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the official translation, Mr Xi went on to say:

"We aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060."

Until now China has said it would peak its emissions by 2030 at the latest, but it has avoided committing to a long-term goal.

Emissions from China continued to rise in 2018 and 2019 even as much of the world began to shift away from fossil fuels.

While the Covid-19 crisis this spring saw the country's emissions plunge by 25%, by June they had bounced back again as coal-fired plants, cement and other heavy industries went back to work.

In 2014 the US and China reached a surprise agreement on climate change. Getty Images

Observers believe that in making this statement at this time, the Chinese leader is taking advantage of US reluctance to address the climate question.

"Xi Jinping's climate pledge at the UN, minutes after President Donald Trump's speech, is clearly a bold and well calculated move," said Li Shuo, an expert on Chinese climate policy from Greenpeace Asia.

"It demonstrates Xi's consistent interest in leveraging the climate agenda for geopolitical purposes."

Back in 2014 Mr Xi and then US-President Barack Obama came to a surprise agreement on climate change, which became a key building block of the Paris agreement signed in December 2015.

Mr Xi has again delivered a surprise according to Li Shuo.

"By playing the climate card a little differently, Xi has not only injected much needed momentum to global climate politics, but presented an intriguing geopolitical question in front of the world: on a global common issue, China has moved ahead regardless of the US. Will Washington follow?"

There are many questions about the announcement that remain unanswered, including what is meant exactly by carbon neutrality and what actions the country will take to get there.

"Today's announcement by President Xi Jinping that China intends to reach carbon neutrality before 2060 is big and important news - the closer to 2050 the better," said former US climate envoy Todd Stern.

"His announcement that China will start down this road right away by adopting more vigorous policies is also welcome. Simply peaking emissions 'before 2030' won't be enough to put China on the rapid path needed for carbon neutrality, but overall this is a very encouraging step."

This week has seen the second lowest Arctic sea ice minimum on record. Getty Images

Most observers agreed that the announcement from China was a significant step, not least because of the country's role in financing fossil fuel development around the world.

"China isn't just the world's biggest emitter but the biggest energy financier and biggest market, so its decisions play a major role in shaping how the rest of the world progresses with its transition away from the fossil fuels that cause climate change," said Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a UK-based think tank.

"The announcement today is also a major fillip for the European Union, whose leaders recently urged President Xi to take exactly this step as part of a joint push on lowering emissions, showing that international moves to curb climate change remain alive despite the best efforts of Donald Trump and [Brazil's president] Jair Bolsonaro in the run-up to next year's COP26 in Glasgow."

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Why Aren’t We Heeding Mother Nature’s Warnings?

Bloomberg - 

Wildfires from California to the Arctic permafrost are failing to convince enough people of the urgency for action on climate change.

From California to the Arctic, the drumbeat is getting louder. Photographer: RINGO CHIU/AFP/Getty Images

Author
Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and environmental, social and governance issues. Previously, she was an associate editor for Reuters Breakingviews, and editor and correspondent for Reuters in Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia.
Fires that have consumed swathes of Australia, the Arctic and now the western U.S. are lighting only a tiny flame under climate action for the world’s top polluters.

It’s hard to imagine how the past two years could have included more environmental alarm bells, from the ancient peatlands ablaze in the thawing north to mercury hitting just over 54 degrees Celsius (130 Farenheit) in California’s Death Valley, after the hottest decade on record. Even that isn’t changing enough minds.

So, what will it take? Focusing less on the deniers, learning to work with biases, alongside communities and expanding the green lobby as benefits spread would be a start.

Last week offered a clear example of the extent of the problem. Meeting California state officials to discuss out-of-control wildfires, U.S. President Donald Trump was told global warming was making the situation worse. “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch,” he said.

The science suggests otherwise, came the reply from the secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. “Well, I don’t think science knows, actually.” This isn’t a unique response, and suggests fact and experience aren’t enough.

Evidence from Australia, climate victim and perpetrator, is just as worrying. Last year, before a devastating bushfire season and a May election, an ABC poll suggested the environment had jumped to the number one concern for 29% of respondents, ahead of the economy. Still, voters backed an incumbent coalition that champions coal.

Today, it is remarkable how little has changed after months of blazes that produced as much climate-damaging pollution as the world’s commercial aircraft fleet in a normal year. The government has left net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets to states, focuses on new technologies instead of outright cuts, and wants a gas-fueled recovery that heads in the wrong direction, as my colleague David Fickling has written.

Some communities are stepping up efforts, and conversations about how to adapt to and mitigate the new reality are more frequent. U.S. Democrats’ Green New Deal, laid out last year, is ambitious; so, too, is Europe’s green recovery. And extreme events have changed some minds, as in the case of Frank Luntz, the pollster who had long helped the Republican party minimize the threat of climate change. Far more changes of heart are needed, though.

For years, global warming was seen as too distant, happening too slowly and as a problem for others. It didn’t feel urgent or personal, and was an unsolvable collective action problem. Much of that no longer applies. If reminders were needed, the coronavirus pandemic has shown just how swiftly a distant threat can become immediate. Still, public and political action hasn’t been galvanized.

Some of that is due to psychology. Humans have limited memories and adapt, so extreme events may become less noteworthy as they become more frequent. Research by Frances Moore at the University of California, Davis, and others published last year suggests that expectations are adjusted as anomalous temperatures become less remarkable. It isn’t yet clear if that extends to other extreme weather, but it’s not a comforting thought.

More gravely, there is the increasingly partisan nature of the environment debate, after years of active fossil fuel industry lobbying. It feeds on our desire to protect the status quo and the social group we belong to. We avoid challenging our worldview even when we experience something inconsistent with what we hold to be true.

Changing our mind becomes like turning our back on ourselves, or betraying our community, says Rebecca Colvin at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, who studies social relations in this context. A polarized media exacerbates that, with the messenger trusted even if the facts are proven wrong.

It doesn’t help that the problems at hand are complex, and have multiple causes, offering narratives for naysayers to hook onto — say, the role of arson in Australia’s wildfires, or the question of inadequate forest management in the U.S.

But if parties aren’t changing and facts don’t work — what can?

The good news is that even if policy action is tough, perhaps impossible in some parts of the world, there is plenty that can be done by activists and others, using the same psychology that stops individuals now. Irina Feygina, an independent consultant on behavioral science, suggests framing action as a means of protecting our way of life.

That works with biases and counteracts the tendency to avoid change. As important, it’s worth spending less time on the small percentage of hardline naysayers who won’t convert and focusing on the larger, disengaged and poorly informed population that can be coaxed into adjusting, she says.

Then there is the role of local groups, working from kitchen table up to encourage change that’s harder at the national level. ANU’s Colvin points to Yackandandah, a community in Australia aiming to run entirely on renewable energy. Falling prices help.

Financial markets, meanwhile, are beginning to incentivize action as investors shirk polluters and insurance companies raise premiums for flood- and fire-prone areas. Green lobbying can highlight examples of successful transitions, as advantages accrue.

All of this can help compensate for insufficient policy. The question is whether we have enough time.

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(AU) China's Surprise Climate Pledge Leaves Australia 'Naked In The Wind', Analysts Say

The Guardian - 

Beijing now has a more ambitious long-term climate goal than Australia – and there are fears that could have a dire impact on our economy

Chinese president Xi Jinping’s announcement at the UN general assembly means the world’s biggest emitter has a more ambitious long-term climate goal than Australia. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Australia’s resistance to a mid-century net zero emissions target is likely to become increasingly unsustainable after China surprised global leaders by pledging it would reach “carbon neutrality” before 2060, climate analysts and advocates say.

The announcement by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at the UN general assembly on Tuesday means the world’s biggest emitter has a more ambitious long-term climate goal than Australia despite still being considered an emerging economy.

Xi said China would update its Paris agreement commitments to carbon dioxide emissions peaking before 2030 and reaching “neutrality” – zero additional emissions into the atmosphere – by 2060. He called for a “green recovery of the world” from the Covid-19 pandemic and promised to introduce “vigorous policies”.

It is the first time China, which is responsible for about half of global coal use and has driven much of the recent rise in emissions, has said it would end its net contribution to the climate crisis. It follows the European Union last week strengthening its Paris commitments, including pledging to cut emissions by 55% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.

The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, said on Sunday the government had committed to reach net zero emissions in the second half of the century, rejecting a call from business, industrial, farming and union groups for it to set that target for 2050. The government has not set a formal long-term target, and has said it does not intend to change its 2030 goal – a 26-28% cut below 2005 levels – before a major UN climate meeting in Glasgow next year.

Dean Bialek, a former Australian diplomat to the UN now working with ex-UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and the British government’s climate action champion Nigel Topping, said China’s increased climate ambition was “a very important step forward” and would shift the focus of global climate talks.

He contrasted it with the Australian government releasing a low-emissions technology statement on Tuesday that was “completely open ended” on where the country’s emissions were headed.

“We often hear from the Australian government that China’s doing nothing and that as a result it’s useless for Australia to propose ambitious targets, but this new announcement flies in the face of that,” Bialek said. “It will further isolate Australia on climate policy internationally.”

He said Australia could end up exposed to measures that imposed a cost on the trade of carbon-intensive goods. “This is not just a moral multilateral argument. Australia’s laggard status might have very significant negative economic consequences,” he said.

Kobad Bhavnagri, the Sydney-based global head of industrial decarbonisation with analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said China’s announcement was a monumental shift, noting the country’s per capita wealth remained a fraction of Australia’s.

“It basically leaves Australia naked in the wind,” he said. “The old excuses for our inaction are shattered. It is an unsustainable position for Australia to continue.”
Erwin Jackson, policy director with the Investor Group on Climate Change, said China’s announcement was a reminder that Australia, as a carbon-intensive economy, was heavily exposed to “the inevitable transition” to net zero emissions. “Unless Australia positions itself to attract investment in this transition it risks being caught up in a flight of global capital away from fossil fuels,” he said.

China’s previous commitment was to aim for its emissions to peak in about 2030. It follows a period in which the country has noticeably increased the construction of coal-fired power plants, leaving it with an oversupply.

China’s intentions on climate are often opaque, but there have been some recent signs it is re-thinking its stance. National oil company PetroChina announced a “near-zero” emissions target for 2050, and the People’s Bank of China has begun talking of the need for a “green” financial system in the wake of the pandemic.

Climate policy experts said Xi’s speech left several questions unanswered, including how “carbon neutrality” would be defined and whether the commitment applied to just carbon dioxide or all greenhouses gas.

More than 100 countries have net zero goals, but several larger countries have resisted, and global emissions reached a record high last year, largely due to rising Chinese CO2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found global emissions would need to be about 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 and net zero by mid-century to limit global heating to about 1.5C, a goal that countries agreed in Paris they would pursue.

Momentum for further action will in part depend on the US presidential election. Bialek said Australia could be further isolated if Democratic candidate Joe Biden won in November. While Donald Trump is withdrawing the country from the Paris agreement, Biden has promised to re-join and take a global leadership role in tackling the issue.

A spokesperson for Angus Taylor, the minister for energy and emissions reduction, told Guardian Australia: “Australia’s emissions peaked more than a decade ago … Australia’s ambition is to be a global leader in technologies that will reduce emissions, lower costs and create jobs.”

The opposition did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said it would put pressure on Australia to announce a time frame for “complete decarbonisation” and meaningful shorter-term milestones. “Others are lifting their 2030 game and it’s about time Liberal and Labor did here too, because without strong action this decade we won’t keep global warming well below 2C.”

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