BRUSSELS: The European Union has strongly criticised China’s newly announced targets for reducing planet-warming gases.
Beijing revealed its first ever absolute climate targets at a United Nations summit, pledging to cut economy-wide emissions by 7-10% by 2035 relative to the year of its peak emissions, believed to be 2025.
EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra stated that China’s targets fell “well short” of what the bloc considered “both achievable and necessary” for the world’s top polluter.
He declared that “this level of ambition is clearly disappointing and given China’s immense footprint, it makes reaching the world’s climate goals significantly more challenging.”
China currently holds the position as the world’s second-largest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The nation accounts for nearly 30% of global emissions according to current data.
Observers almost universally described the announced targets as too modest while noting Beijing’s historical pattern of under-promising while over-delivering, driven by its green technology boom.
The stated trajectory resembles the path followed by the United States and European Union in the decade after their peak emissions.
This pathway would fall well short of what scientists say is needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the target established by the 2015 Paris Agreement to prevent the worst climate catastrophes.
The European Union ranks among the world’s major polluters but has demonstrated the strongest commitment to addressing climate change, which is intensifying disasters worldwide from floods in Pakistan to raging wildfires in Spain.
However, the bloc’s leadership faces significant testing due to internal divisions over ambition levels as it shifts focus toward boosting defence and industry in response to the war in Ukraine and global trade tensions.
Brussels has committed to cutting emissions by 55% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, with current reductions already approaching 40% according to the European Commission.
The EU has thus far failed to establish a hard target for 2035 as required under the Paris Agreement.
Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told the UN summit that EU member states have agreed their target “would range” between 66.25% and 72.5%, though a formal pledge will come later.
China had previously pledged to peak its carbon output before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 without setting near-term numeric targets for total emissions reductions.
Beijing’s pledge emerged as the United States boosts fossil fuels both domestically and internationally under President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “con job”. – AFP
