US & Brazil Pledge Jointly To Raise Renewable Energy To 20% By 2030
The United States and Brazil have announced a joint agreement to bring their levels of renewable energy sources other than hydro to 20% by 2030.
The announcement was made on Tuesday in a joint statement between US President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, which intends to showcase the two countries’ commitment to fighting climate change.
Specifically, the Joint Initiative on Climate Change will be implemented through a high-level United States-Brazil Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) which is aimed at enhancing bilateral cooperation on issues such as land use, clean energy, and adaptation, as well as affecting policy dialogues on domestic and international climate issues.
The Working Group is expected to begin its work in October of this year, and during its first meeting is set to discuss a work program to address areas of action for cooperation between the two countries.
“Since 2005, our two nations have reduced carbon emissions more than any other countries in the world,” said President Obama. “In Brazil, this includes very impressive efforts over the past decade to combat deforestation, including in the Amazon — what’s sometimes called the “lungs of the planet.” Together, our countries are leaders in clean energy.”
“Both our nations are setting new goals on clean energy. Beyond hydropower, the United States and Brazil will aim to increase the share of electricity we generate from renewable energy to 20 percent by the year 2030,” President Obama continued.
“These are very ambitious goals — a near tripling for the United States and more than double Brazil’s current output”
“Climate change is one of the central challenges of the 21st century,” added President Rousseff. “And we have one important objective, which is, number one, to ensure that the energy mix in our two countries will have a substantial share of renewable sources of energy.”
The joint agreement has been applauded by those within the renewable energy community as well.
“The U.S. wind energy industry applauds the administration’s latest commitment today to increase renewable energy in America,” stated Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.
“We are glad to see U.S. progress in this area stimulating progress in other countries. The 20 percent by 2030 target is very achievable in our view, and consistent with recent government estimates. The agreement calls for tripling the amount of low-cost, reliable wind energy, but we can quadruple by 2030 with the right policies, so even more can be done. To rapidly move towards that goal Congress must pass long-term, stable tax policy as soon as possible.”
Brazil also intends to continue its fight against illegal deforestation in tandem with a program to increase carbon stocks through reforestation and forest restoration. Subsequently, Brazil intends to restore and reforest 12 million hectares of forests by 2030.
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