U.S., China issue joint pledge to slow climate change in the next decade
Source: Washington Post
At a surprise announcement in the waning days of the COP26 summit, the world’s two largest emitters — China and the United States — said they would work together to slow warming during this decade and ensure that the Glasgow climate conference ends in success. In announcing the “Declaration for Enhanced Climate Action in the 2020s” China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said the two countries would reiterate the Paris temperature goal of limiting warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, with a goal of not exceeding 1.5 degrees.
With just a few days remaining to reach a COP26 agreement, he said the countries were focused on developing transparency regulations for reporting and tracking emissions and developing rules for a carbon market. “Both sides recognize there is a gap between the current efforts and the Paris agreement goals,” Xie said in a news conference Wednesday evening. As the world’s two superpowers, he continued, the U.S. and China have a special obligation to work together on keeping the world a peaceful place.
“We need to think big and be responsible,” he said. “We need to actively address climate change and through cooperation bring more benefit to our two peoples and to people around the world.” The surprise declaration was a boost to talks that are still teetering on the edge of failure to reach an agreement. Chinese President Xi Jinping declined to travel to Glasgow, a blow to ambitions to achieve a far-reaching deal to reduce greenhouse gases and avert disastrous levels of global warming, since China is the world’s biggest emitter.
And after over 10 days of talks so far, China has not had a major public presence at the conference, unlike other high-emissions countries such as India and Brazil. Their officials have had high-profile speaking engagements and can easily be spotted wandering national pavilions in the exhibition area of the conference.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/11/10/us-china-declaration-climate/
I may have to pull out the
regarding China because they are too invested in coal (although they are good at mustering people to do huge construction projects and could convert to something else if they wanted to).
= new reply since forum marked as read
actually reproducing (and/or reverse-engineering) what other countries are making too, to the point of copyright/patent infringements, but I digress. 
I had basically noted their manufacturing prowess upthread in a reply - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2825097
They produce much of the "energy-saving" appliances and devices that we import here so they can choose to use them or not.
The one thing that requires each country to decide which tech (or combo) to use will be dependent on their geography and topography and even natural climate. Trying to do solar in countries that have extended rainy seasons or harsh, snowy winters, may not work out well. Alternately, efficient wind generation requires locations that tend to have a constant prevailing wind - whether along mountain ridges or high plains or by an ocean.
I think it's China's biggest coal supplier. I'll probably ask my oldest son about what Oz leaders say about their coal production trade plans with China. My oldest and his family live in a Newcastle suburb not far from the coast. On one visit years ago I was amazed to see 10-20 ships, every day, on the Pacific, heading north from the port and disappearing in the northern horizon as new ones moved into the line just south of me.
Thanks for the news. This is an important joint aspiration by Joe Biden and Xi Jinping that could gain them more trust world wide. But ceasing coal production will be tough for Australia.
that the "foreign" source of coal for China is probably from India, the #2 user of coal for electricity (and obviously a similar polluter).
By Amy Gunia
October 13, 2021 11:54 AM EDT
Power crises in China and India that have caused blackouts and factory shutdowns are highlighting the region’s reliance on the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel: coal. But some experts say the energy supply problems facing two of the world’s largest economies might lead to more support for renewable energy and help to accelerate the sector’s growth. China is facing its worst energy crisis in a decade, with coal shortages driving power outages and rationing. India is teetering on the edge of a power crisis, with stocks of coal at unprecedentedly low levels and states warning of impending blackouts.
Some states, like Rajasthan have scheduled power cuts and several thermal power stations across the country have shut due to shortages.The issues have been caused by myriad factors, including soaring global coal prices, increasing economic activity, flood and monsoon-related supply disruptions and geopolitical tensions. (China has imposed an unofficial ban on coal from Australia, one of the world’s largest coal exporters.) Experts say that the instability of the coal supply chain is likely to be a boon for clean energy, prompting more investment in the sector.
“The investment response I’m expecting will be a doubling or trebling of Indian and Chinese renewable energy installs because the best way to solve a crisis is to remove your energy security problem,” says Tim Buckley, the director of energy finance studies for Australia and South Asia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).Despite global concern about greenhouse gas emissions and urgent calls for action to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, much of the Asia-Pacific remains reliant on coal, which is widely considered the most polluting fossil fuel. China and India are the world’s biggest consumers of coal.
The fossil fuel accounts for around 70% of India’s electricity generation, while 56% of China’s electricity is generated by burning coal. That has harmful consequences; China is the world’s biggest polluter, and India comes in third, after the U.S. More than half of all coal consumed globally in 2020 was used in China, making Asia is the largest consumer of coal by region, according to British Petroleum’s (BP) Statistical Review of World Energy 2021. After China and India, Indonesia and Japan were the largest coal consumers in Asia. Added together, the latter two countries consumed more coal than all of Africa in 2020.
https://time.com/6106343/india-china-coal-shortages/
It has taken the U.S. over 50 years to acknowledge the problem and start a prolonged phase-out of coal. It may take those countries as long although the research and availability of "replacement" energy sources is out there vs the options the U.S. had 50 years ago, but terrain and natural climate would definitely be a factor in what to shift to. I would think that with the extensive river network that they have, they could try more hydroelectric (currently their supposed "2nd largest" electricity generation source) -
And regarding the transition from "coal" residential heating to something else - certainly the U.S. went through that transition for residential use, over a period of several decades. My mom grew up in the '30s with coal heat and stoking a coal furnace that was eventually replaced with natural gas at her childhood home - and this was here in the city of Philadelphia - where she also went from the block of ice delivered by a man with a cart on the street that was placed at the top of an "ice box", to a regular refrigerator too.
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The northern-most areas of China are on a similar latitude as northern Maine north to the southern Canadian provinces (which I believe are mostly oil-dependent). It would be an issue for solar in those areas in winter with long night hours, although the summer daylight hours are high.
