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Demonstration for climate jobs in Melbourne, Australia
Photo: JAMES ROSS / imago images / AAP
Shortly before the start of the World Climate Conference in Glasgow on Sunday, China and Australia submitted their long-awaited revised climate protection plans to the UN.
This emerges from an overview of the UN climate secretariat in Bonn updated on Thursday.
However, the key points are known and have been announced in advance by the governments in Beijing and Canberra.
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement gives the 200 or so countries involved a five-year cycle to gradually increase their efforts.
They are presented in so-called national contributions.
Also because of the corona pandemic, some countries are only now presenting their new plans, almost a year too late.
China's emissions are expected to fall from 2030
China, the most populous country, produces by far the most greenhouse gases.
The billion-dollar empire is also the largest consumer of coal in the world.
In the new climate protection plan, state and party leader Xi Jinping has renewed its commitment that China's emissions will only rise until 2030 and then fall.
China also wants to become carbon dioxide neutral by 2060.
Also known is the promise to increase the volume of wood in Chinese forests by six billion cubic meters compared to 2005 and to increase electricity production from wind and solar power to an installed capacity of more than 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030.
The Australian government has now officially communicated to the UN the goal, which was made public this week, of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
For a long time, the Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to submit a specific date for achieving climate neutrality.
The goal is to be achieved, among other things, through "ultra-cheap" solar energy and long-term storage.
The planned reduction targets by 2030 will not be tightened any further, as the plan shows.
These provide for emissions to be reduced by 26 to 28 percent compared to 2005 levels by then.
The latest forecasts showed that Australia was well on the way to reducing emissions by as much as 30 to 35 percent by 2030, it said.
kfr / dpa