In a new commitment to battle climate change, China plans on enacting laws in 2017 that would put a limit on carbon emissions in the country, as well as charging companies that exceed those limits for a permit to do so.
The New York Times reports that Chinese president Xi Jinping will announce the new laws in a Friday summit meeting at the White House with President Obama.
This announcement signals the beginning of China's plan to cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030. This is significant because China is the largest contributer to the world's pollution. The country relies heavily on coal burning for its factories and power plants, and the air quality in China is so bad, one study found that air pollution contributes to around 1.6 million deaths in the country every year.
Now, though, China plans on doing something about the pollution. It's already started enacting similar cap-and-trade programs in seven provinces — a program that Jinping hopes to extend to the entire country in 2017. The idea is to monetarily motivate Chinese companies to use greener energy by forcing those who emit more carbon emissions to pay more. The country also plans on setting strict limits on public money given to projects within the country that would result in more emissions.
During his first term, President Obama attempted to introduce a similar program in the U.S., but the Senate didn't approve it — partially because Republicans and Democrats alike felt that such a program would interfere with how the U.S. competes economically with China. But now that China has plans to commit to such a program, it's likely that the issue will come up again. Perhaps this time, it has a better chance of becoming a U.S. law.
Of course, China has more problems to deal with if this law takes effect: first, how would the country enforce it? Many Chinese companies have a history of corruption, which could decrease the effectiveness of the cap-and-trade law.
Both presidents will attend a climate change accord in Paris at the end of the year: this meeting hopes to get every country attending to commit to lowering its carbon emissions.
"It increases our probability of succeeding, and it increases the likelihood that we will have a more robust agreement," said an anonymous senior administration official to The New York Times about the upcoming Paris accord.
