The U.S.-China carbon emissions deal announced last week in Beijing has been hailed by President Barack Obama as landmark.

Landmark it is not. For one thing. it’s unclear how either the U.S. or China would meet the new goals. But that’s just the start.

Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that his country would, for the first time, set a date when its carbon emissions would peak, after which it would reduce its use of coal and other fossil fuels. That date is around 2030, which is 15 years from now.

In return, President Barack Obama pledged the U.S. would cut greenhouse gas emissions to 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The current U.S. target is to reach a level of 17 percent below 2005 emissions by 2020.

Obama will have a difficult time pushing his initiative through a skeptical Republican Congress. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, soon to be chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called the deal “a non-binding charade.” Soon to be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a coal-producing state, called it a job killer.

Obama more likely will sidestep Congress and go to regulatory agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy, Interior and Agriculture departments — to target carbon pollution from power plants, methane from oil and natural gas drillers and tailpipe emissions from trucks, trains and airplanes. If Obama goes that route, the regulatory changes likely won’t continue beyond his term of office because future presidents can change the regulations, too.

By far, China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. It produced nearly 4 billion tons of coal in 2013, about as much as the rest of the world combined. Three-quarters of China’s electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.

Obviously it will take time for China, which has evolved into the world’s leading economy, to dismantle its coal industry and develop cleaner sources of energy. But now that process won’t even begin for another 15 years, giving China a continued economic edge while businesses in the United States will be required to make immediate — and expensive — adjustments to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s not difficult to see why U.S. coal producers, forced by diminishing domestic markets, are exporting coal to China at a rate of 6.5 million tons a year, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures.

It’s a safe bet the U.S. coal exports will increase over the coming decade. And that’s the ultimate irony of this deal — that regulations intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are negated by China’s coal plants, which burn U.S.-exported coal. And China continues to build new coal-fueled power plants: According to U.S. government projections, China will add the equivalent of a new 600-megawatt plant every 10 days for 10 years.

Last week’s deal does nothing to slow that pace. It hardly seems like a landmark.