China's Plan for an Emissions Cap Is a Climate Change Turning Point

Following Obama’s encouraging (if not entirely sufficient) commitment to cut carbon emissions in the US, China has announced that it too will combat its contributions to climate change with an absolute cap on carbon dioxide emissions.

Reuters reported that at a Beijing conference today, the chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, He Jiankun, revealed targets that will be included in their next five-year plan. These included controls on CO2 emissions “by intensity” as well as an “absolute cap.”

An absolute cap is a pretty impressive sign that they're not messing around; set to come into play from 2016, it’s the first time China will have had one. In an updated article, Michael Grubb, a climate professor at the University College London, said the announcement “marks potentially the most important turning point in the global scene on climate change for a decade.”

There’s no word on what level of emissions this cap will be placed on—and coal emissions will still grow in China until 2030, according to He—but it’s a promisingly decisive step by the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It’s likely no coincidence that they announced this so soon after Obama’s plans, and Adam Vaughan at the Guardian commented that the timing “appears deliberately chosen to show China will also take a leadership role on climate change.”

It’s easy to vilify China’s position in the global picture of climate change—they are the biggest producers of emissions, and it’s impossible to ignore the kind of pollution that's visible to the eye—but the country is also making laudable efforts to tackle the issue, so much so that earlier this year, Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told Bloomberg that China was an example of “doing it right.”

The country has previously played with the idea of carbon taxes, invested heavily in solar power, and made commitments alongside the US to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, which if you remember from high school science lessons are the particularly damaging, manmade greenhouse gases you find in fridges.

While the details need to be worked out before we celebrate too much, it’s great to see commitments from both the US and China on the climate change issue, as they’re undeniably the two key players in the debate and haven’t historically always seen eye to eye on the matter. So as well as making steps for their individual countries, their actions will set an example for other countries to follow suit as talks ramp up in the lead-up to a new global climate treaty expected to be adopted next year.

Of course, China’s strong line on emissions isn’t just about being all eco-friendly (not that it makes much difference in terms of the effects). The smog in Chinese cities is notorious, and presents a real health threat and a drag on the country’s economy. While there’s invariably a lot of hubbub over futuristic solutions like smog-sucking drones or pollution-cleaning vacuum cleaners, the only real way to make a sustained impact is to address the cause of emissions in the first place, which in China largely comes down to a heavy reliance on coal.

So placing a cap on emissions, while less pleasing to sci-fi sensibilities, is a solid move.