Officials cast the announcement as a statement of joint resolve by the world’s two largest greenhouse gas polluters, even though there are doubts about whether the U.S. can meet its obligations under the agreement.
In February, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked an Obama administration regulation to curb greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s climate change policy and the major way for the administration to meet its targets under the Paris accord.
The two world leaders made the announcement on the sidelines of a nuclear security meeting in Washington.
“Our cooperation and our joint statements were critical in arriving at the Paris agreement, and our two countries have agreed that we will not only sign the agreement on the first day possible, but we’re committing to formally join it as soon as possible this year,” Mr. Obama told reporters at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where he was meeting with Mr. Xi at the nuclear gathering.
Mr. Obama, who spoke across a table from Mr. Xi, added: “And we urge other countries to do the same.”
Mr. Xi, speaking through an interpreter, said: “As the two biggest economies, China and the U.S. have a responsibility to work together.”
The Paris Agreement, reached in December, is the first global accord to commit nearly every nation to take domestic actions to tackle climate change.
To promote the accord, Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, planned the signing ceremony for April 22, Earth Day, although world leaders will have a year afterward to sign. The announcement by Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi is intended to push other countries to sign on, particularly since diplomats say the Supreme Court order has caused some countries to question American climate policy and might cause them to refuse or hesitate to sign the accord.
The Paris Agreement will enter into legal force only when enough countries have signed on: together they have to be responsible for causing 55 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Because of the Supreme Court stay, the regulation curbing greenhouse gas emissions will not be put in place until legal challenges by 29 states and several business organisations have been resolved, which is unlikely to happen before next year. The regulation would help the U.S. cut greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2025.
Chinese energy experts said China’s pledge to sign the accord was independent of the status of American climate policy.
“The understanding is that China is doing this for its own sake,” said Ranping Song, an expert on China’s climate change policies with the World Resources Institute, a Washington research organisation. “It’s good for their environment; it’s good for their economy.”
Mr. Xi’s administration has endorsed an aggressive expansion of renewable energy sources in China. The country’s latest five-year economic plan calls for the country to generate 15 per cent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.
Combined, the U.S. and China account for about 40 per cent of global emissions.
Mr. Ban has invited world leaders to come to New York for the April signing ceremony, which he hopes will represent the largest single joint signing of a major global accord in history.
“The most important thing is how many signatures we get on that day,” said Laurence Tubiana, France’s chief climate change envoy to the UN.
In the U.S., enactment of Mr. Obama’s climate change commitments under the Paris deal will ultimately fall to the next President.
But that fact also worries some climate diplomats as they watch the 2016 presidential campaign from afar. Although the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, has pledged to enact and strengthen the Paris Agreement, on the Republican side, both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have questioned or denied the science of human-caused climate change.
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