How China would help soften impact if Trump abandons Paris climate accord

China’s top-down environmental initiatives, energy market forces and sub-national mandates in the US would mitigate the impact of President Donald Trump’s possible withdraw from a global climate pact, according to energy and climate experts.

Media outlets citing unnamed White House sources reported that Trump will likely fulfil his 2016 presidential campaign promise to withdraw from the United Nations’ Paris Agreement, signed by Barack Obama last year. Trump said on Twitter on Wednesday he would announce a decision on the pact on Thursday afternoon, Washington time.

The accord commits the US to cutting carbon dioxide and other fossil-fuel-related emissions by about 27 per cent by 2025, using 2005 emission levels as a baseline.

More than 140 other countries have signed the agreement, cobbled together as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, committing themselves to varying reduction targets. As the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the US are the two most important signatories.

“There’s very credible evidence to suggest that” China will hit its commitment to peak the country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions earlier than the planned target of 2030, Andrew Light, a former US State Department climate negotiator, said in an interview with the Post.