China and the United States the world’s top two carbon polluters jointly pledged to increase their cooperation on climate action despite their strong disagreements on other matters. News conferences at U.N. climate talks in Glasgow. Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S counterpart John Kerry said the two countries would work together to accelerate the emissions reductions required to meet the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The joint declaration came as the crunch COP26 summit in Glasgow entered its pivotal final days with negotiators wrestling over ways to limit global warming to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels. This document contains strong statements about the alarming science emissions gap, and the urgent need to accelerate action to close that gap. China agreed for the first time to crack down on methane leaks, following the lead of the Biden administration’s efforts to curb the potent greenhouse gas. Beijing and Washington agreed to share technology to reduce emissions. The two countries said they are alarmed by recent scientific reports detailing the progress of what they both term the climate crisis.
The declaration also said China will make best efforts to accelerate its plans to reduce coal consumption in the second half of this decade. The announcement came as governments from around the world were negotiating in Glasgow about how to build on the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect vulnerable countries from the impacts of global warming.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the move an important step in the right direction. It’s a good sign that the world’s two biggest emitters can actually work together to face the biggest crisis of humanity but there’s not a lot of meat thereafter the methane stuff said Byford Tsang a China policy analyst for the European think tank E3G.
The draft is likely to change but it doesn’t yet include full agreements on the three major goals that the U.N. set going into the negotiations for rich nations to give poorer ones $100 billion a year in climate aid to ensure that half of that money goes to adapting to worsening global warming and the pledge to slash global carbon emissions by 2030. It acknowledges with regret that rich nations have failed to live up to the climate finance pledge. Currently, they are providing around $80 billion a year, which poorer nations that need financial help both in developing green energy systems and adapting to the worst of climate change say isn’t enough.
Papua New Guinea Environment Minister Mori said that given the lack of financial aid his country may rethink efforts to cut logging, coal mining, and even coming to the U.N. talks. European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans was more upbeat. We’re ready and willing to make sure we deliver on the highest possible levels of ambition leading to prompt global action.
The draft says the world should try to achieve net-zero around mid-century, a target that was endorsed by leaders of the Group of 20 biggest economies at a summit just before the Glasgow talks. That means requiring countries to pump only as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as can be absorbed again through natural or artificial means.
The world’s top two carbon polluters, China and the United States, jointly pledged to increase their cooperation on climate action despite their strong disagreements on other matters. China agreed for the first time to crack down on methane leaks, following the lead of the Biden administration’s efforts to curb the potent greenhouse gas. Beijing and Washington agreed to share technology to reduce emissions. The U.S and China bilateral agreement gave a huge push to the creation of the historic 2015 Paris accord but that cooperation stopped with the Trump administration, which pulled the U.S out of the pact. The Biden administration brought the U.S back into that deal but has clashed with China on other issues such as cybersecurity, human rights, and Chinese territorial claims. This is not a gamechanger in the way the 2014 climate deal was in many ways it’s just as much of a step forward given the geopolitical state of the relationship,” said Thom Woodroofe, an expert in U.S-China climate talks. “It means the intense level of US-China dialogue on climate can now begin to translate into cooperation. The two nations will also establish a bilateral working group that will “meet regularly to address the climate crisis and advance the multilateral process, focusing on enhancing concrete actions in this decade.
The declaration said. We’re ready and willing to make sure we deliver on the highest possible levels of ambition, leading to prompt global action.
The world should try to achieve net-zero around mid-century,” a target that was endorsed by leaders of the Group of 20 biggest economies in a summit just before the Glasgow talks. That means requiring countries to pump only as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as can be absorbed again through natural or artificial means.
