Countries need to plagiarize, pirate and mimic the best practices in energy and efficiency

If China and the USA each adopted a ‘best of the two’ practice in electricity production, industry, buildings and transport they would reap huge benefits.

If they did this, in relative terms, China could reduce emissions from its current policy projections by 1.2% in 2020 and 20% in 2030 – and 3.2% and 16% for the US.

But going for global best practice, together, the two countries would reduce emissions in 2020 by 2.8 GtCO2e/a below current policy projections and thus close 23% of the emissions gap. In 2030, the reductions would be of 6.7 GtCO2e/a, or 10% below the Climate Action Tracker global current policy projections.

* China has more efficient cement plants than the US, whereas the US has more efficient iron and steel plants. Both can improve significantly to reach currently best available technology.

* if both China and USA were to move to global best practice for cars (e.g. emission standard for cars as in the EU, increase of share of electric cars as in Norway) there could be a major difference.