China announcing its first concrete target to reduce emissions, world leaders met at a United Nations climate summit on Wednesday, said they became more serious about the fight against climate change and the extremely extreme time that accompanies it.
In a video address, Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced that the world’s largest polluting country in the world would aim to reduce emissions from seven to 10% by 2035.
China produces more than 31% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and they have long increased.
The detailed objective has marked the first time that China has committed to reducing emissions, but the reduction was much lower than the 30% reduction by 2035 which, according to some scientists, was necessary to align China with the agreed global objective of limiting warming to 1.5 C.
The announcement occurred while more than 100 world leaders met to speak of an increased emergency and the need for stronger efforts to slow down the spitting of gas trapping heat.
With the main international climate negotiations in Brazil at 6 and a half years old, UN secretary general António Guterres summoned a special summit of leaders on Wednesday at the general assembly to concentrate on specific plans to limit the emissions of coal, oil and natural gas.
After more than six hours of speeches, promises and announcements, around 100 nations – responsible for around two thirds of world programs – gave plans or a kind of commitments to further curb fossil fuels and fight against climate change, said assistant secretary general Amina J. Mohammed.
XI is committed that China would increase its wind and solar energy six times compared to the levels of 2020, would make traditional pollution vehicles and “essentially established a climate adaptive society”.
Europe then followed with a new less detailed climate change combat plan and not entirely official. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said last week that her Member States agreed that their target cutting emissions would be between 66 and 72%. The EU will officially submit its plan before the negotiations of November.
While the new promises are evolving in the right direction and showing a stronger commitment to fighting climate change, “these objectives will not be sufficient to protect us from the destruction of the climate,” said Jake Schmidt, main strategic director for the international climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The UN climate chief Simon Siell said that the Chinese plan “is a clear signal that the future global economy will take place on clean energy. And that for each country, a stronger and faster climate action means more economic growth, jobs, affordable and secure energy, cleaner and better health, for all of us.”
But others have been disappointed.
“China’s last climate target is too shy given the country’s extraordinary record on clean energy,” said former president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, president of the Elders group. “China must go further and faster.”
The EU Commissioner on the Climate, Wopke Hoekstra, said in a press release that the contribution that China had submitted “does not become what we think is both achievable and necessary. This level of ambition is clearly disappointing, and taking into account the immense imprint of China, this makes the climatic objectives of the world much more difficult.”
Trump’s climatic comments have disputed
On Wednesday afternoon, the chief of Xi and Brazil also made statements that may have referred to the attacks by American president Donald Trump one day earlier against renewable energies and the concept of climate change.
“While some countries act against this, the international community should remain focused on the right direction,” said Xi.
US President Donald Trump rejected climate change during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly as “greater stupid and the greatest work ever perpetrated in the world”.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, who is organizing the next climate conference, said: “No one is immune to the effect of climate change.”
“Borders will not stop droughts or storms,” ​​said Lula. “Nature will not bow against bombs or warships. No country is held above another.”
During a press conference Lula said he invited Trump and Xi to November climate negotiations, saying it is important that leaders listen to scientists.
The UN needs promises by the end of the month
Under the Paris Climate 2015 Agreement, 195 Nations are supposed to submit new, stricter five -year plans on how to limit carbon emissions from the combustion of coal, petroleum and natural gas.
UN officials have said that countries really need to make their plans by the end of the month so that the UN can calculate how the warming is on the right track if the nations do what they promise. Former American president Joe Biden submitted the American plan at the end of last year before leaving his duties, but the Trump administration moved away from the plan.
Before 2015, the world was on the path of 4 C of warming since pre -industrial times, but has now cut this at 2.6 C, Guterres said.
However, the Paris Agreement has set an objective of limiting warming to 1.5 C since the middle of the 19th century, and the world has already warmed around 1.3 C since.
