REM: US and China agree to ramp up renewables

The US and China have agreed to try to replace fossil fuels with renewables. The two countries are the world’s largest emitters.

Both countries will speed up the adoption of wind, solar and other clean energy through 2030, to “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation,” said the climate agreement announced in the US on November 14 by the State Department. It was announced separately in China.

They said they will “pursue efforts to triple renewable-energy capacity globally by 2030 … so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation.”

The two nations also said they expect power-sector emissions to reach a high this decade, although China did not agree to reduce its use of coal or slow its pace of building new coal plants, a sticking point in climate negotiations between the two countries.

According to the agreement, both nations said they expect “meaningful absolute power-sector emission reduction” this decade. China is not known to have agreed to cut emissions before.