USA, Brazil Joint Statement on Climate Change

• President of the United States of America Barack Obama and President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff issued a joint statement on climate change on 30 June 2015 in Washington, the USA.
• Both the countries jointly committed to work on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to protect bilaterally the planet from the adverse effects of climate change.
• Both the countries committed to increase the share of renewables (beyond hydropower) by 20 percent by 2030 in their electricity matrices.
• This implies that the United States and Brazil will need to triple and double their share of renewable energy respectively, in the next 15 years.
• US being the second and Brazil being the seventh top greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, respectively, their commitments have significant implications on the global long-term transition to low-carbon economies.

An important step further:-

Three areas of cooperation except energy sector, take this relationship even further, including:-

1. Cooperation on sustainable land use, which includes the launching of a Binational Program on Forest and Land Sector;
2. Cooperation on clean energy, to expand research on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and deepening existing partnerships; and
3. Cooperation on adaptation to climate change to enhance collaboration related to adaptation planning and resilience, among others.

Disappointments:-

There are six key issues that were supposed to get discussed during this agreement but were not clarified. Those were actually related to

1. Brazil’s target for 20 percent non-hydro renewable energy electricity generation by 2030.
2. Brazil is not rolling out a full economy-wide target for emissions reductions.
3. A sector-specific target on transport is missing which is nearly half of Brazil’s energy sector emissions.
4. There was no zero net deforestation pledge.
5. Brazil’s huge offshore “Pre-Salt” fossil fuel reserves are turning the country into a major oil producer and exporter.
6. Any mention on target for emissions per person was entirely missing in discussion.