China, EU step up to carbon cut challenge as US exits Paris climate deal

The United States – which has cumulatively pumped out the largest amount of the carbon emissions blamed for global warming – will on November 4 officially quit the Paris Agreement, the world’s largest coordinated effort to fight climate change.

For those ringing the climate alarm bells, the withdrawal represents a government that chooses to ignore science linking the burning of fossil fuels to global warming, even as California grapples with some of the largest wildfires in its history and the US Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that September was the planet’s hottest on record.

But as the US exits the United Nations-backed Paris Agreement, other global powers are taking up the reins. Analysts say China and the European Union are increasingly finding common ground on climate governance, despite growing tensions in other policy areas.

In September, President Xi Jinping told the UN that China – which is now by far the world’s largest producer of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, while also accounting for most of the growth in wind and solar power generation – would be carbon neutral by 2060.