UN chief Ban Ki-moon today commended a deal by the US and China to reduce their carbon emissions and called on other nations to emulate the example in announcing "ambitious" post-2020 targets to limit climate change.
"Today, China and the United States have demonstrated the leadership that the world expects of them," the UN Secretary General said.
"This leadership demonstrated by the governments of the world's two largest economies will give the international community an unprecedented chance to succeed at reaching a meaningful, universal agreement in 2015," said a statement by Ban's spokesperson.
The Secretary General congratulated Chinese President Xi Jingping and President Barack Obama on the "significant and timely" announcement and thanked them "for their personal commitment to work together to remove any impediments to reaching an agreement in Paris."
Ban called on "all countries, especially all major economies, to follow China and the United States' lead and announce ambitious post-2020 targets as soon as possible, but no later than the first quarter of 2015."
He also welcomed the commitment expressed by both leaders to increase their level of ambition over time as well as the framing of their actions in recognition of the goal of keeping global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius.
"The joint announcement signals that the transition towards a low-carbon, climate-resilient future is accelerating," Ban said.
The UN Secretary-General believes a "strong foundation" has been laid and momentum is building towards a meaningful climate agreement in 2015, following the positive commitments made by government, business, finance, and civil society leaders at the Climate Summit at the UN Headquarters in September, the ambitious decision taken by the European Union leaders on their post-2020 emission reduction targets in October and the announcement by the US and China.
The US and China today pledged ambitious action to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.
The US intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26pc-28pc below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28pc.
China intends to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20pc by 2030.
