'Bottom-up' deal on climate change better?

UNITED States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on Tuesday a potentially landmark joint climate change deal. This has the potential to catalyse United Nations-led negotiations, which resume again on Dec 1 in Peru, to secure a new global climate treaty in 2015 to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

Under the deal, Washington and Beijing have announced new targets for greenhouse gas emissions that are intended to help curb global warming. The US would cut net greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels in the next 11 years.

Meanwhile, President Xi has agreed that China for the first time will set a date when its emissions would hit a peak (estimated around 2030), after which greenhouse gas emissions would fall. This is a target that Beijing will reportedly try to hit sooner.