China’s Role In The Race For Climate Leadership

China’s Role In The Race For Climate Leadership

To have any hope of meeting the Paris climate goals we need a competitive race between the world's superpowers for low-carbon supremacy. While the Biden administration has necessarily started playing catch-up with the USA's climate ambitions, what China achieves with its transition to a zero-carbon economy is particularly important. China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, with double the emissions of the USA in second place. So, what China does during the energy transition will have a huge impact on whether the world achieves the Paris climate goals. Since day one in office, Joe Biden has been rushing to repair the reputational damage caused by four years of climate backtracking by the previous administration. Biden has moved to re-position the USA as a leader on climate change. Not only to bring the USA back to where many feel it belongs, but also as a way to pressure other countries to follow suit, especially those with less-than-impressive climate targets At the Leader's Summit on Climate hosted by President Biden at the end of April, the USA committed to a new mid-term emissions target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50-52% by 2030 from a 2005 baseline. While some observers