Washington – November 12th, 2014
Statement from Helen Mountford, Programme Director of the New Climate Economy project:
We welcome the important announcements today by China and the United States on their plans to tackle carbon pollution.
These will send a powerful economic signal to businesses and innovators to invest in an efficient, dynamic and low-carbon economy. These two countries are acting because they know that it is in their economic interest to do so.
The targets set by the United States and China, the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, send a signal to the world about the scale and size of opportunities in global markets for low carbon goods and services.
Businesses in China and the United States are already acting; this agreement will allow them to go further and invest more, driving down costs and promoting innovation. We know from previous policy experience that this dynamism is likely to make the targets even easier to meet and even exceed. And scaling-up ambition worldwide will be essential to avoid the most costly risks of a changing climate.
This Friday we will release a study undertaken by experts at Tsinghua University that examines the economic opportunities available to China in reducing carbon and air pollution. The study follows the release of a similar study about the opportunities in the United States which showed how the country can benefit economically from further action on climate change.
These announcements once again demonstrate that it is indeed possible to have better economic growth and a safe climate at the same time. We do not need to choose between them; we can, and must, have both.
