U.S., China Announce Deepened Partnership On Climate
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced additional commitments on climate change Friday, along with a "common vision for an ambitious global climate agreement."
The presidents of the world's two biggest emitters are meeting in Washington. In the announcement, China committed to instate a cap-and-trade program for lowering emissions in 2017, and the U.S. reaffirmed its plans to cut emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030.
China also announced it will commit $3.1 billion to help poorer countries deal with climate change through a bilateral fund. The U.S. had previously promised $3 billion to the international climate fund -- though whether it will be able to deliver is unclear, as Republicans in Congress have opposed efforts to provide the funding.
In a joint press conference with Xi on Friday, Obama said their work on climate shows "there's no reason for other countries, developed and developing, to not do so as well."
In their discussions, the two leaders also addressed the upcoming negotiations on climate change through the United Nations in Paris this December and agreed on the "importance of a successful agreement that ramps-up ambition over time, pointing toward a low-carbon transformation of the global economy this century," the White House said in a fact sheet issued Friday. (by Kate Sheppard, Huffington Post)