China took a major stride forward on climate on Tuesday. Xi also promised that China’s CO2 emissions would actually stop rising by 2030, only 10 years from now. (Trump will pull the United States out of the global climate agreement on November 4 if he wins, and maybe even if he loses.) That was the ‘aspirational’ target agreed at the Paris climate summit in 2015, but it was never very likely in reality. The US is a mature industrial power with relatively high emissions (15 per cent of world emissions), but they are dropping slowly despite Trump’s efforts to revive the coal industry.

Source: The Star September 25, 2020 01:03 UTC