United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled ambitious new targets for a climate change deal at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Beijing Tuesday, The Associated Press reports.

Historic deals were made for both countries.

For the U.S., Obama unveiled a new plan to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025.

For China, the president will cap its rapidly growing carbon emissions by 2030 for the first time in history. The country also committed to increasing the share of non-fossil fuels to 20 percent of China's energy mix by the same year.

The announcement was timed with the hope of spurring other countries to set targets ahead of a global climate treaty scheduled for 2015 in Paris, according to AP.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised the agreement.

"Today, China and the United States have demonstrated the leadership that the world expects of them," he said in a statement. "This leadership demonstrated by the Governments of the world's two largest economies will give the international community an unprecedented chance to succeed at reaching a meaningful, universal agreement in 2015."

Earlier in his presidency, Obama set a goal to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020, compared to 2005.

White House officials told The New York Times that Obama and Xi had been working out the agreement secretly for nine months. It is predicted to help galvanize international efforts toward fighting climate change.

Both countries agreed to expand joint energy research and development initiatives, advance major carbon capture and storage projects and explore trends for building climate-smart cities, according to a White House statement.

Yet, now that the midterm elections gave the Republican Party control over Congress, it is unsure if the U.S. will be able to deliver on its end of the climate pledge.

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