WASHINGTON: The United States and Brazil on Tuesday unveiled ambitious joint renewable energy targets, hoping to present a collective front ahead of crunch global climate talks later this year.

Putting a spying row behind them, Presidents Barack Obama and Dilma Rousseff agreed to create 20 per cent of domestic electricity from non-hydropower renewable sources by 2030 and vowed to fight for an “ambitious global climate accord”.

“This is a big deal”, Obama’s top climate aide Brian Deese said. “For the United States, it will require tripling the amount of renewable energy on our electricity grid.” “For Brazil, it will require more than doubling.” The target comes ahead of UN-sponsored climate talks in Paris in late November and December.Ahead of the meeting, countries are arm-wrestling over global and national emissions targets.

Nations are being asked to set their own reduction targets with an overall aim of limiting global temperature increases to two degrees Celsius.

Obama has pledged to reduce US emissions by 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025 and was hoping for a similar concrete commitment from Brazil.

Rousseff did not come to Washington with a firm figure, but both countries “committed to reaching an ambitious agreement” at the Paris talks.

In a statement, they pledged “strong post-2020 contributions consistent with their determination to show global leadership”.

Rousseff was first expected in Washington in October 2013, but suspended the trip after it emerged US intelligence had tapped her telephone calls and those of millions of other Brazilians.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2015

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