China's plan to cut its carbon intensity and a U.S. proposal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions are a milestone for climate change talks to be held in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency said Thursday,
China's plan to cut its carbon intensity and a U.S. proposal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions are a milestone for climate change talks to be held in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency said Thursday,

"Both these decisions from the U.S. and China, if implemented, will be a milestone for climate change and could transform the energy sector," the IEA's Fatih Birol told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

"Both targets, if implemented, put the world in a 450 ppm context," Birol said, referring to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that's required to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius and causing dangerous climate change.

Earlier Thursday, China said it planned to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40% to 45% by 2020 from 2005 levels.

China's pledge followed the announcement Wednesday that President Barack Obama will attend the Copenhagen conference and is promising the U.S will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by about 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83% by 2050.

The announcements from China and the U.S. are very close to what the IEA, the industrialized world's energy watchdog, recommended the two countries should do in the 450ppm scenario in their recent World Energy Outlook.

It would also mean that China 's emissions would be 1 gigaton lower than under the business-as-usual scenario, Birol added.

Although an additional $400 billion investment in renewable energy, efficiency and other carbon-abatement measures would be required for China to reach its carbon-intensity target.

"The cost will be about 0.8% of GDP, but there will also be benefits also," he said, referring to savings in oil and gas import bills of $40 billion in 2020 and the opportunity for China to become a world leader in green technologies.

The U.S. and China are responsible for about 40% of global emissions so getting agreement between the two countries is crucial to the success of climate talks in Copenhagen, where representatives of more than 190 countries are preparing to hammer out a deal to cut emissions, aimed at limiting the rise in global temperatures and preventing dangerous climate change.

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