Washington: Any chance Australia had of downplaying climate change during the G20 meeting appears to have been scotched by the historic carbon emission agreement announced by the United States and China on the eve of the talks in Brisbane.
In the lead-up to the Brisbane talks the two nations' leaders announced ambitious new carbon emission reduction targets. US President Barack Obama declared that his nation would double its pace of reductions and seek to cut its emissions to 26 to 28 per cent less carbon on 2005 levels by 2025.
Even more significantly, China announced a cap on its carbon emissions for the first time, pledging to reach peak emissions by 2030 and to increase the amount of clean energy it used to 20 per cent by then.
The US hoped the agreement between the world's two biggest emitters would increase pressure on other countries to set greater reduction targets, and would probably be a part of any bilateral meetings the United States took part in at the G20, US State Department senior spokeswoman Jen Psaki said during a briefing in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.
"Climate and our pursuit of achievable but challenging targets is something that the Secretary [of State, John Kerry] raises in nearly every meeting and conversation he has and the President of the United States has already indicated that this is also a big priority of his," she said.
"Obviously at the G20 … there will be a focus on economic issues and how we are co-ordinating with the global economy. Climate in our view is part of that. I'm not saying necessarily the agenda, but in general, under the broad umbrella. I am certain in bilateral meetings the issue of climate, as we look to the Paris negotiations a year from now, will be a part of the agenda."
She said the US hoped the announcement of the China-US agreement would provide momentum for further international action before next year's climate talks in Paris.
As host, the Australian government has set the agenda for the G20 talks, and maintained a focus on economic growth, though it has agreed to some discussion of climate change in talks over energy.
Senior members of the Republican Party, set to take control of Congress when the new term begins in January, have already voiced their opposition to the China-US agreement.
Senator Jim Inhofe, the Republican climate-change denier who is expected to chair the environment committee in the new Congress, said he would do everything in his power to end the deal and overturn earlier moves Mr Obama made to cut US power-plant emissions by 30 per cent.
John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, described the agreement as "the latest example of the president's crusade against affordable, reliable energy that is already hurting jobs and squeezing middle-class families."
Senator Mitch McConnell, who is expected to be made Majority Leader in the new Senate, and who based his recent re-election campaign in Kentucky on attacking what he called Mr Obama's "war on coal" said: "As I read the agreement, it requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years."
