China submits new ‘disappointing’ emissions pledge to UN
China, the world’s biggest polluter, has made only a small improvement in its emissions-cutting plan formally submitted to the UN on Thursday, just days before the start of a crucial G20 leaders meeting in Rome and climate summit in Glasgow.
The submission is a disappointment to leaders who have been pressuring the country to make a significant jump in its pledges and to speed up its plans to decarbonize its economy.
Nick Mabey, CEO of E3G, a European climate think tank, said China’s new plan was “disappointing and a missed opportunity.”
“Despite massive reductions in the cost of clean technology and worsening climate impacts globally, China hasn’t clearly committed to reducing emissions in the 2020s in these new targets,” Mabey said in a statement.
In the new plan — known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) — China said it aimed to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, a pledge that President Xi Jinping had previously announced, and said it would lower its CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by over 65% from the 2005 level by 2030. China’s emissions plans are set out in terms of “carbon intensity” which allows for more emissions the more the country’s GDP grows.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES