China And US Sign Ambitious Climate Change Agreement

 

The United States and China pledged Wednesday Nov 12,2014 to take ambitious action to limit greenhouse gases, aiming to inject fresh momentum into the global fight against climate change ahead of high-stakes climate negotiations next year.

Top 10 emitters 2013	% of global total
China	29
USA	15
EU	10
India	7.1
Russian Federation	5.3
Japan	3.7
Germany	2.2
Republic of Korea	1.8
Iran	1.8
Saudi Arabia	1.5

President Barack Obama announced that the US would move much faster in cutting its levels of pollution. Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to cap China's emissions in the future — a striking, unprecedented move by a nation that has been reluctant to box itself in on global warming.
The US set a new target to reduce its emissions of heat-trapping gases by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. That's a sharp increase from earlier in Obama's presidency, when he pledged to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020.
China, whose emissions are still growing as it builds new coal plants, didn't commit to cut emissions by a specific amount. Rather, Xi set a target for China's emission to peak by 2030, or earlier if possible. He also pledged to increase the share of energy that China will derive from sources other than fossil fuels.