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A12 SCIENCE
Thursday 24 sepTember 2020
China, top global emitter, aims to go carbon-neutral by 2060

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — on the United States," Ster-
Chinese President Xi Jinping man said.
says his country will aim to Perhaps even more impor-
stop adding to the global tant than the carbon neu-
warming problem by 2060. trality pledge is the effort to
Xi's announcement dur- peak carbon dioxide emis-
ing a speech Tuesday to sions before 2030 instead of
the U.N. General Assembly by 2030, Sterman said. Car-
is a significant step for the bon dioxide's more than
world's biggest emitter of 100-year lifetime in the air
greenhouse gases. makes earlier emission cuts
Calling for a "green revolu- more effective than prom-
tion," Xi said the coronavi- ises in the future, he said.
rus pandemic had shown "Emissions that don't hap-
the need to preserve the pen between now and
environment. 2030 are going to reduce
"Humankind can no longer warming a lot more than
afford to ignore the repeat- the same emission reduc-
ed warnings of nature," he tions after 2060," Sterman
said. said. However, pledges are
Citing the Paris Agreement not the same as actions.
that he and former U.S. What's needed is signs of
President Barack Obama action, such as eliminating
helped forge in 2015, Xi In this Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in cen- plans to build new coal-
said his country would raise tral China's Shanxi Province. fired power plants, cutting
its emissions reduction tar- Associated Press subsidies for coal power
gets with "vigorous policies and getting off coal en-
and measures." sions and a significant step lines, with the EU aiming to could prevent 0.4 to 0.7 tirely, Sterman said. Coal is
"We aim to have CO2 emis- forward in international be carbon neutral by 2050. degrees (0.2 to 0.4 degrees the biggest carbon dioxide
sions peak before 2030 and cooperation" U.N. climate Frans Timmermans, who Celsius) further warming for emitter of power sources.
achieve carbon neutrality chief Patricia Espinosa said. leads the EU executive's the world, according to Twenty-nine nations before
before 2060," he said. The goal will be a chal- efforts on climate change, "very rough estimates" by China have pledged to
The term "carbon neutral- lenge for China, which re- welcomed Xi's announce- MIT management professor achieve climate neutrality
ity" means releasing no ad- lies heavily for its electricity ment. John Sterman, who models in different years, accord-
ditional CO2 into the atmo- on coal, one of the most "We need decisive action and tracks emission reduc- ing to the Carbon Neutral-
sphere, though technically carbon-intensive fossil fuels. from every country to keep tions and pledges with Cli- ity Coalition.
it allows countries to keep China released the equiva- temperatures under con- mate Interactive. With China, the 30 coun-
emitting if they ensure that lent of 10 billion tons of car- trol, tackle climate change But much depends on how tries that have some kind of
an equal amount is cap- bon dioxide, or CO2, into and keep our planet inhab- they do their emissions re- carbon neutrality pledges,
tured again in some form. the atmosphere in 2018, itable," he said. duction and how soon they account for about 43% of
The announcement was according to the Global The United States has so far cut them, he said, adding the world's carbon dioxide
cheered by climate cam- Carbon Project that tracks not set such a goal. Presi- he has to do a more thor- emissions from the burn-
paigners. Greenpeace ex- emissions worldwide. That dent Donald Trump, who ough analysis. ing of fossil fuels. The larg-
ecutive director Jennifer was almost twice as much once described climate "That's a lot," Sterman said. est polluting countries not
Morgan called it "an im- as the United States and change as a hoax invent- "China's by far the world's on the list are the United
portant signal" that showed three times as much as the ed by China, has started big emitter. They're emit- States, India, Russia, Iran,
climate change is "top of European Union. the process of pulling the ting more than the EU and Saudi Arabia, Indonesia,
agenda for China." Several other major emit- U.S. out of the Paris accord. US together.'' South Africa, Turkey, Brazil
"A big shift for curbing emis- ters have set earlier dead- If China fulfills Xi's goal, it "It puts a lot more pressure and Australia.q

Bus-size asteroid to zoom by Earth, ducking below satellites

By MARCIA DUNN atmosphere and burn up once every year
AP Aerospace Writer or two, said Paul Chodas, director of the
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at
the size of a school bus is headed our way, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There
but NASA says the space rock will zoom could be as many as 100 million of these
safely past Earth on Thursday. little asteroids out there.
The newly discovered asteroid will come The real threat are considerably bigger
within 13,000 miles (22,000 kilometers) of asteroids. The good news is that these are
Earth, well below many of the communi- easier to spot much sooner than just a few
cations satellites orbiting the planet, scien- days out.
tists said this week. The closest approach Asteroid 2020 SW, as it is known, was dis-
will occur Thursday morning over the covered last Friday by the Catalina Sky Sur-
southeastern Pacific Ocean. vey at the University of Arizona in Tucson.q
Once it's gone, the asteroid won't be back
to Earth's neighborhood until 2041.
This image from video made available by NASA's Center for Scientists estimate the asteroid is between
Near-Earth Object Studies shows the path of asteroid 2020 SW as 15 feet and 30 feet (4.5 meters to 9 me-
it safely passes Earth on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. ters). By asteroid standards, that's consid-
Associated Press ered puny. Asteroids of this size hit Earth's