The leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico in a joint announcement Wednesday committed to powering their nations with 50 percent “clean power,” including carbon capture and storage, by 2025. Presidents Barack Obama, and Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, met in Ottawa for the North America Leaders’ Summit.
The new commitment is intended to help the nations reach their respective pledges under the Paris climate agreement. “As we implement our respective Nationally-Determined Contributions, we will cooperate on climate mitigation and adaptation, focusing in particular on highly integrated sectors, shared ecosystems, human health and disaster risk-reduction efforts,” the announcement says.
Under the Paris Agreement, the U.S. pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent by 2025. Canada has promised to reduce its emissions by 30 percent by 2030 and Mexico has pledged to reduce its emissions by at least 25 percent by 2030. “North America has the capacity, resources and the moral imperative to show strong leadership building on the Paris Agreement and promoting its early entry into force,” the agreement says.
All three nations also restated their intention to formally join the Paris Agreement by the end of the year. The agreement will come into force following ratification by 55 nations representing 55 percent of the world’s emissions. Currently, 18 nations representing .18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have ratified the agreement. If the U.S., Mexico, and Canada join that percentage would jump to 21.72.
“We can help lead the world to meet this threat. Already, together in Paris, we achieved the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change. Now, let’s bring it into force this year,” Obama said in a speech Wednesday to the Canadian Parliament.
The new announcement defines “clean energy” as power generated from renewable sources, nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage technologies on fossil fuel power generation.
“To support the goal of 50 percent clean power generation, the three countries plan a range of initiatives, including cutting power waste by aligning ten appliance efficiency standards or test procedures by 2019, 5,000 megawatts of cross-border transmission projects to facilitate deployment of clean power, a joint study of the opportunities and impacts of adding more renewables to the electric grid on a continental basis, and the greening of government operations to 100 percent clean energy by 2025,” Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and Brian Deese, senior adviser to the president on climate, conservation, and energy policy, wrote in a blog post Wednesday.
The new clean energy target will build on a transition already in process within the energy markets of all three countries, the two officials wrote. “Deployment of clean energy is growing at an unprecedented pace and the cost of new technologies is plummeting,” according to Furman and Deese.
Not everyone was thrilled with the announcement. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity called into question the inclusion of CCS in the pledge, saying that it is not feasible in the U.S. due to regulation. “[T]here are no scalable plants anywhere in the world with CCS and none will ever be built in this country thanks to regulations promulgated by this Administration. So the question is, just where will all this low- or zero-carbon energy come from? Certainly not rainbows and unicorns which one would have to [have] pockets full of to meet these pie in-the-sky commitments,” Laura Sheehan, ACCCE senior vice president of communications, said in a written statement,
Canada is home to the world’s first commercial-scale CCS project on a post-combustion coal-fired power plant at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 plant.
