China, along with Canada, India and Brazil are at a summit at the White House, with all nations under pressure to pledge action against greenhouse emissions
US President Joe Biden has committed the US to halving the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030.
The pledge came amid a virtual global summit at the White House on Thursday, which joined by world leaders including the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In his address at the beginning of the summit, Joe Biden said: “The science is undeniable.
“The cost of inaction just keeps mounting… we have to step up.”
The pledge, which would amount to nearly double that of previous commitments, and the summit represent a concerted effort from the US to reclaim credibility and leadership on climate change after four years of inaction under former President Donald Trump.
The target is based on 2005 levels of emissions.
This come after radical new climate change commitments will set the UK on course to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035, Boris Johnson will announce this week. For most households the new carbon emissions targets mean more electric cars, low-carbon heating, renewable electricity and, for many, cutting down on meat and dairy.
Mr Biden said: “Scientists tell us this is the decisive decade. This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis.”
But the President had warned that no country can solve this crisis “on its own” and called for all nations to band together.
“If we do, we will breathe easier, literally and figuratively.
“This is a moral imperative and an economic imperative… but also a moment of extraordinary possibilities.”
In his response, Boris Johnson described the move from the US as “game changing”. He said that nations needed to work together and would need to be “constantly original and optimistic about new technology and new solutions”.
He added: “It is vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive, politically-correct green act of bunny hugging.
“Let’s use this extraordinary moment and the incredible technology we are working on, to make this decade the moment of decisive change in the fight against climate change – and let’s do it together.”
This comes after the unprecedented extraction of the oxygen, literally out of thin air on Mars, had been achieved on Tuesday by an experimental device aboard the NASA Perseverance rover, a six-wheeled science rover that had landed on the Red Planet on February the 18th after a seven-month journey from Earth.
China has previously been criticised for not following suit on climate ambition. Just last week the US climate envoy John Kerry called on the nation to “assume responsibility” for its part in climate change, and the country’s president Xi Jinping was called on early in order to address the summit.
The Chinese President said that he was looking forward to working with the international community on climate change issues and that the Chinese people “have always value harmony between man and nature”.
And he made a pledge that China would “strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”.
