Barack Obama praises 'historic' climate deal as Labor steps up attack on Coalition The new power generation: US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of their news conference in Beijing. Beijing: Australia risks being left out in the cold on climate policy on the eve of the G20 summit in Brisbane after China and the US struck a landmark deal setting ambitious new targets to cut pollution. Meeting in Beijing, US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced an agreement that would see the world's two biggest economies and polluters slash emissions. Lonely stand: Prime Minister Tony Abbott behind US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a surprise deal negotiated in secret for nine months, Mr Obama announced a target to cut US emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025, doubling the pace of emissions reduction. Mr Xi pledged to cap China's growing carbon emissions by 2030, or sooner if possible. China also gave itself the challenging goal of increasing the share of zero-emission non-fossil fuel to 20 per cent of the country's energy mix by the same year, a move that has potentially significant implications for Australian exports of coal to China. Labor and the Greens seized on the deal to launch a blistering attack on the government's climate policy, accusing Mr Abbott of holding "flat-earth views" and urging greater emissions reductions. "As the world's two largest economies, energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gases, we have a special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change," Mr Obama said in a joint press conference with Mr Xi. In what might be interpreted as a veiled reference to Australia, Mr Obama said: "We hope to encourage all major economies to be ambitious - all countries, developing and developed - to work across some of the old divides, so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement next year. In a short statement, Environment Minister Greg Hunt welcomed the deal and said the Abbott government was already delivering on Australia's commitment to reduce emissions by 5 per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. We have always said that we will consider Australia's post-2020 emissions reduction targets in the lead-up to next year's Paris [climate] conference. This will take into account action taken by our major trading partners," he said. An equivalent target for Australia to the new US pledge would be a 30 per cent reduction in emissions against 2000 levels by 2025. Earlier this year, Australia scrapped its carbon tax and there are serious questions about whether the Coalition's Direct Action policy can reach the stated 5 per cent target. There has been pressure on the government to announce post-2020 reduction targets but to date, the government has only committed to a review next year, with observers warning time is running out for it to meet an April United Nations deadline. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the agreement was "historic and ambitious" and meant that at the G20 summit, which both the US and Chinese presidents will attend, "Australia will hold the embarrassing title of being the only nation going backwards on climate change." "With China and the United States representing around one-third of the global economy and over 40 per cent of global emissions, there will be significant momentum to deal with climate change in Brisbane," he said. And Greens leader Christine Milne said the deal should be a "massive wake-up call to Tony Abbott. His continued climate denial and his destruction of the environment is reckless. Observers said the deal lacked genuine ambition and fell short of what was needed to reverse the course of climate change. "The two biggest emitters have come to the realisation that they are bound together and have to take actions together," said Li Shuo, senior climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia. Mr Obama and Mr Xi spoke for five hours over a private dinner at the Chinese president's compound in central Beijing on Tuesday, where Mr Xi told his guest he hoped they had laid the foundation for a co-operative relationship, or as he put it, "A pool begins with many drops of water." Climate Institute deputy chief executive Erwin Jackson said the deal "makes us look like a roo in a spotlight." "The world is increasingly focused on post-2020 actions and Australia doesn't currently have any domestic policy that would reduce emissions on the scale being put forward by the US and other major emitters," he said. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the government should not rush to announce its own post-2020 emissions reduction target, and added that "if China peaks its emissions around 2030 it will change the outlook for Australia's resources exports - less coal, but maybe more gas." Fine print is always worth reading ... but today's announcements go well beyond what we've seen before. Minerals Council chief executive Brendan Pearson predicted China would target its efforts to reducing the use of low-quality coal in boilers in buildings and small manufacturing and shift the emphasis to modern, highly efficient centralised supercritical coal-fired power generation. This will require high-quality coal which Australia is well-placed to supply. In fact, estimates suggest that China's coal fleet will expand by 400 GW by 2040; that's more than the USA's entire coal sector [300 GW]. Coal is Australia's second-largest export to China after iron ore, with sales of just over $9 billion in 2013 and Mr Abbott said recently it was "good for humanity."