US, Brazil vow 'ambitious' climate targets

The United States and Brazil on Tuesday unveiled ambitious joint renewable energy targets, hoping to present a collective front ahead of global climate talks later this year and glossing over recent tensions over spying that have strained relations between the two countries.

Putting a spying row behind them, Presidents Barack Obama and Dilma Rousseff agreed to create 20 percent 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 United Nations-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 U.S. emissions by 26 to 28 percent 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."

Brazil also pledged Tuesday to curb illegal deforestation by restoring and reforesting 12 million hectares of land by 2030 — an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania.

Rousseff was first expected in Washington in October 2013, but suspended the trip after it was revealed that U.S. intelligence had tapped her telephone calls and those of millions of other Brazilians. Vice President Joe Biden and other top officials have spent the last two years attempting to repair the damage to the relationship inflicted by those revelations.

"The visit itself indicates that we are moving forward here," said senior Obama foreign policy aide Ben Rhodes ahead of Rousseff's arrival.

Rousseff faces mounting difficulties at home stemming from a faltering economy and a huge corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras.

In New York, Rousseff called on investors to embrace an economy that is the largest in Latin America and the seventh largest in the world. But forecasts of a shrinking economy have caused Rousseff's approval ratings to drop near single digits.

Agence-France Presse