China, India slow global emissions growth, Trump’s polices will flatten US emissions

15th May 2017
Global leadership on climate is changing: Positive developments on coal use in China and India are likely to reduce projected global carbon emissions growth by roughly two to three billion tonnes by 2030 compared to forecasts made a year ago, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) said today.

(full briefing)

The recent, sweeping policy rollbacks by President Trump are unlikely to have a major impact on global emissions by 2030, according to the CAT analysis on China, India, and the US, released at the Bonn climate talks.

“The highly adverse rollbacks of US climate policies by the Trump Administration, if fully implemented and not compensated by other actors, are projected to flatten US emissions instead of continuing on a downward trend,” said Prof Niklas Höhne, of NewClimate Institute.

Meanwhile, both China and India are set to overachieve their Paris Agreement climate pledges. China’s coal consumption declined over three consecutive years (2013 to 2016), and a continued slow decline is expected. India has stated that its planned coal-fired power plants may not be needed. If the country fully implements recently announced policies, India would see a significant slowing in the growth of CO2 emissions over the next decade.