http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/31/us-set-to-propose-emissions-cuts-of-28-ahead-of-global-climate-treaty
US pledges emissions cuts of up to 28% ahead of global climate treaty
US confirms greenhouse gas emissions cuts proposals that will be ‘very
tough’ to change, boosting prospects for a global climate change
agreement at talks in Paris in December
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent and Suzanne Goldenberg
Tuesday 31 March 2015
The White House pledged to cut carbon pollution by up to 28% on Tuesday,
boosting the prospects for an international agreement on climate change
at the end of the year.
With the US pledge, the countries accounting for nearly 60% of
greenhouse gas emissions from energy have outlined their plans for
fighting climate change in the 2020s and beyond, the White House said in
a conference call with reporters.
“That’s a big deal,” Brian Deese, the White House climate adviser wrote
in a blog post announcing the pledge. “The United States’ target is
ambitious and achievable, and we have the tools we need to reach it.”
Deese told the conference call the US expected to achieve emissions cuts
of 26% to 28% by 2025 relative to 2005 levels and was on track for an
80% cut in emissions by 2050.
The climate commitments would be “locked in” by the time Barack Obama
leaves, and could not easily be reversed by a Republican president or
Republicans in Congress, officials told the conference call.
“The undoing of the kind of regulations that we are putting in place is
something that is very tough to do,” Todd Stern, the state department
climate envoy, said. “The kind of regulation we are putting in place
does not get easily undone.”
Some 33 countries have now committed to specific goals for fighting
climate change, according to the United Nations agency overseeing the
negotiations.
In addition to the US, the European Union, Mexico, Norway and
Switzerland have outlined their plans to fight climate change after
2020, when the current commitments expire.
Those plans, and those of other countries offered over the next few
months, will serve as the building blocks of an international agreement
at Paris that is intended to limit warming to 2C, the threshold for
dangerous climate change, Stern told the call.
Deese said the Obama Administration was on track to achieve those
emissions cuts using existing legal authority, and that the US was on
track to achieve emissions cuts of 80% by 2050, based on steps already
set in motion by Barack Obama.
“We have the tools we need to meet this goal and take action on climate
pollution,” Deese told the call.
However, Republicans in Congress said Obama would be unable to deliver
on his commitment to the UN. “The Obama Administration’s pledge to the
United Nations today will not see the light of day,” Jim Inhofe, the
Oklahoma Republican who heads the Senate’s environment and public works
committee, and denies the existence of man-made climate change.
Most countries missed the Tuesday deadline for submitting climate change
plans, agreed at the United Nations negotiations at Lima last December.
A number of the biggest carbon polluters, such as Brazil, India,
Indonesia, Japan , are not expected to announce their commitments until
October.
Russia has offered to cut emissions 25% on 1990 levels by 2030.
Campaigners welcomed the US pledge - which had been widely anticipated -
but said the Obama Administration needed to move decisively to finalise
new rules cutting carbon pollution on power plants to keep up the
momentum before Paris.
The power plant rule is the centerpiece of Obama’s climate change plan.
“The United States is signaling that countries should have confidence it
can deliver. To maintain that confidence, a strong final rule this
summer to cut carbon pollution from new and existing power plants will
be critical,” the World Wildlife Fund said in a statement.
Oxfam said the US needed to make deeper emissions cuts to help keep
warming below 2C. “While this contribution does move us closer to the 2C
pathway, it does not represent the level of ambition needed to avoid
catastrophic climate change.”
Among those countries that have come forward, the EU has agreed to cut
its emissions by 40% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. China has
promised its emissions will peak by 2030 but it has not officially
submitted a pledge to the UN.
Mexico, the first developing country to make a climate commitment, said
it will cut emissions by at least 22% - and as much as 40% if certain
conditions are met. Norway offered a 40% cut in greenhouse gas emissions
by 2030, from 1990 levels, and said it sought to be carbon neutral by 2050.
For the rest of the world, developed countries are expected to submit
plans outlining substantial cuts in greenhouse gases after 2020, while
most developing nations are likely to agree only to curb the growth of
their emissions compared with “business-as-usual”, rather than make
absolute cuts.
But the aggregate level of emissions targets proposed will be bitterly
fought over by countries, experts and civil society. Based on the early
submissions from the three biggest emitting blocs, global emissions
would rise to a level that would see temperatures soar by at least 3.5C,
according to some analyses, way beyond the 2C of warming that is widely
regarded by scientists as the limit of safety, beyond which the effects
of climate change are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible.
Birgit van Munster, of the Homo Sapiens Foundation, which has been
analysing the pledges as they have come in, said: “If all humanity
follows the example [of the first countries to submit pledges] we will
be more than 700% over the likely emissions limit [needed] to limit
global warming to less than 2C, and if this trend continues humanity
will proceed to go beyond 5C, the end of human life on earth as we know it.”
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research
Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: “We
can already see that the pledges for 2030 are likely to be significantly
lower than a “business-as-usual” emissions pathway, but far in excess of
36bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which the UN Environment
Programme concluded last year was the level required for a pathway that
offers a 50% to 66% chance of avoiding warming of more than 2C.”
It is unlikely that the pledges made in advance of the Paris talks will
be enough to lower global emissions to a level consistent with
scientific advice on 2C, as many participants acknowledge. However, many
are hoping that Paris will provide a mechanism for the pledges to be
upwardly reviewed in future years, according to each country’s ability.
“It is very important that the agreement in Paris includes the creation
of a post-2015 process that raises the ambitions of countries’ planned
emissions cuts,” Ward said.
Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, told the Guardian: “Meeting
the end of March deadline is an opportunity for major countries to
demonstrate both urgency and leadership in the battle against climate
change. But thus far we haven’t seen enough of either. Millions of
people around the world are waiting for a signal that their political
leaders are taking climate change seriously. They [the leaders] are
still in time not to let us down.”
Once submitted, the 196 “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions”,
as the plans are known, will be examined by the UN and other countries
to decide whether they are fair and adequate. That process is likely to
take until autumn, when the final preparations for the Paris talks will
be put in place.
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