China, world’s largest carbon polluting nation, announces new climate goal

China will cut emissions by 7-10 percent in the next 10 years, President Xi Jinping tells a UN climate summit.

China will cut emissions by 7-10 percent by 2035, President Xi Jinping told a high-level climate summit on Wednesday, as the world’s largest carbon-polluting nation announced an ambitious target.

Alongside the economy-wide emission-reduction goal, Xi stated that within the next 10 years, China plans to increase its installed capacity of wind and solar power to more than six times its 2020 levels. It also plans to boost its share of non-fossil fuels in domestic energy consumption to more than 30 percent.

In a video address, Xi pledged to make pollution-free vehicles mainstream and “basically establish a climate-adaptive society.”

China spews more than 31 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

At the same time, Xi called on the world’s developed countries to take the lead in stronger climate actions. He referred, though not by name, to the United States for moving away from the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate.

“Green and low-carbon transformation is the trend of our times. Despite some countries going against the trend, the international community should stay on the right track, maintain unwavering confidence, unwavering action, and undiminished efforts,” Xi said, calling for increased global climate cooperation.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump used his United Nations General Assembly speech to blast climate change as a “con job” and criticise European Union member states and China for embracing renewable energy technologies.

Trump ordered a second withdrawal by Washington from the 10-year-old Paris Agreement on climate, which aimed to prevent global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) through national climate plans. The US is the world’s biggest historical greenhouse gas emitter and second-biggest current emitter, behind China.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said their infrastructure and investment in renewable energy and the price of carbon had all increased, and their emissions are down nearly 40 percent since 1940.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is hosting the upcoming climate conference, said, “No one is safe from the effect of climate change. Walls at borders will not stop droughts or storms,” Lula said. “Nature does not bow down to bombs or warships. No country stands above another.”

Guterres said, “The science demands action. The law commands it. The economics compel it. And people are calling for it.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif said his country knows this all too well, with recent floods that have affected five million people across more than 4,000 villages, killing more than 1,000.

“As I speak to you, my country is reeling from intense monsoon rains, flash floods, mudslides and devastating urban flooding,” he said. “We are facing this calamity at a time when the scars of the 2022 floods that inflicted losses exceeding $30bn and displaced millions are still visible across our land.”

Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, 195 nations are supposed to submit new, more stringent five-year plans on how to curb carbon emissions.

UN officials said countries really need to get their plans in by the end of the month so the UN can calculate how much more warming Earth is on track for if nations do what they promise.

Former US President Joe Biden submitted America’s plan late last year before leaving office.

Before 2015, the world was on a path for 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, but now has trimmed that to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), Guterres, the UN chief, said.

However, the Paris accord set the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since the mid-19th century, and the world has already warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since.