China and India are both abandoning coal so quickly that they’re on track reach their goals under the Paris climate agreement ahead of schedule.
China will “achieve or surpass its goal” of cutting its economy’s emissions intensity by up to 70% below 2005 levels by 2030, an international consortium of researchers has determined. India, which pledged a 33 to 35% intensity reduction by 2030, is likely to achieve something closer to 42 to 45%.
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Meanwhile, efforts by the Trump administration to make coal great again by rescinding Obama-era plans to reduce emissions are only likely to suspend the decline in America’s overall emissions, not send them back onto a rising track.
The conclusions come from a new analysis of national emissions commitments and performance released by Climate Action Tracker, a coalition of three climate research bodies. It finds that greenhouse gas emissions from both China and India “are growing more slowly than they predicted just a year ago, and the difference is substantial—roughly two to three billion tons [of CO2e] annually by the year 2030,” InsideClimate News reports.
“That would be enough to more than offset the relatively poor performance expected from the United States” as the Trump administration “rolls back controls and puts the U.S. on track to miss its Paris pledge,” the outlet adds.
“Beijing recently cancelled plans for just over 100 new coal-fired power plants, some of which were already under construction,” ICN notes. “In India, where solar photovoltaic prices dropped to a historic low this week, renewable energy is growing so quickly that the nation is on track to be eight years early in reaching its 2030 goal for renewable energy to supply 40% of the nation’s installed electricity.”
As for “the highly adverse rollbacks of U.S. climate policies by the Trump administration,” concludes Climate Tracker researcher Niklas Höhne, even “if fully implemented and not compensated by other actors, [they] are projected to flatten U.S. emissions instead of [those emissions] continuing on a downward trend.” Trump’s climate negligence is unlikely to push U.S. emissions any higher, however—and as Höhne notes, the calculation doesn’t factor in concerted climate action by states, cities, and businesses that has been taking shape across the U.S.
