by Jeremy Zhao
CANBERRA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Australian politicians, academics and climate change advocates on Wednesday hailed the agreement on climate change reached between China and the United States, which they said put Australia under new pressure.
Earlier on Wednesday, China and the United States issued a joint statement on climate change, listing ambitious goals and pledging joint efforts to tackle climate change in the next 15 years.
The United States intends to achieve "an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025" and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28 percent, according to the announcement.
China's carbon dioxide emission is expected to hit the peak around 2030 and it intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030.
As a response, the Australian Labor Party said Labor welcomes this "historic and ambitious" agreement between the United States and China to seriously tackle climate change.
"At the G20 this week, Australia will hold the embarrassing title of being the only nation going backwards on climate change," Bill Shorten, leader of the opposition, said.
"With China and the United States representing around one third of the global economy and over 40 percent of global emissions, there will be significant momentum to deal with climate change in Brisbane," he said.
He lashed out at Prime Minister Tony Abbott's "failure to recognize this represents a failure of leadership."
While congratulating the United States and China on their agreement, the Australian Greens urged the government to act on global warming, saying "it's not too late for Australia to get on board."
"This should be a massive wake-up call to Tony Abbott. His continued climate denial and his destruction of the environment is reckless," said Greens Leader Christine Milne.
The climate change advocate group the Climate Institute issued a release, saying the China-U.S. agreement spotlight Australia's lack of ambition and action on climate change.
"The United States and China have announced their post-2020 emissions reduction targets, eclipsing Australian efforts and adding further pressure to the government to come up with credible climate policy," said the Climate Institute.
"In stark contrast, our own government wants to stop Australian renewables from growing above 20 percent of our electricity. And it's not clear that with the current policy framework around climate, the Emissions Reduction Fund, we can even achieve the basic, low 5 percent cut on 2020 levels."
A compromise regarding Australia's Renewable Energy Targets ( RET) appears unlikely after Labor walked out of negotiations with the Liberal-National government earlier on Wednesday.
Labor has now joined the Greens and the Palmer United party in staring down the government, refusing to make major changes to the target that requires Australia to install 41,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy by 2020.
If Australia were to try and match what the United States is looking to do, for instance, it would mean about a 30 percent reduction by 2025, the Climate Institute said.
"Australia needs to make strenuous efforts in transforming its energy sector in order not to be left behind and become isolated by trade barriers. This includes retaining the current Renewable Energy Target, and placing a price on carbon such as through an emissions trading scheme," said Ken Baldwin, Director of Energy Change Institute of the Australian National University said.
