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GLASGOW – China’s top climate change ambassador, Xie Zhenhua, has apologized for arriving late to a weekend meeting at the United Nations climate summit.
“We have pretty busy schedules,” said Mr. Xie, according to the two people present for the exchange. “For me in particular, I have to meet with John Kerry almost every day.”
In an unexpected development, the US and China on Wednesday announced in a joint statement that both will do more to reduce fossil fuel pollution this decade. The terms of the deal were not groundbreaking – but the fact that the deal did happen is remarkable given the very strained ties between Washington and Beijing over trade, human rights, Taiwan and other serious differences.
Despite this, the deal was the product of months of talks between Mr. Xie and President Biden’s global climate ambassador, Mr. Kerry, before arriving in Glasgow for the conference, according to American and Chinese officials. known as COP26. These officials said that the two were close to daily talks at the summit.
Although Mr. Biden had previously scolded President Xi Jinping for not attending the summit in person and launched a sniper shot from Beijing in return, Mr. Xie and Mr. Kerry continued to meet quietly to discuss whether China could increase its ambition. on the climate.
Over the past 10 days, the two envoys and their negotiating teams have often met in a cavernous exhibition center where two weeks passed, in makeshift white rooms with windowless thin partitions held together by metal hinges. Negotiations continue in Scotland.
Mr. Kerry, 77, and Mr. Xie, 72, have known each other for more than 20 years and have both stepped out of retirement to take up their country’s top climate positions. According to a senior US official who attended the talks, their grandchildren talked about Mr. Kerry’s vacation home and Mr. Xie’s garden before engaging in more intense negotiations on coal, methane and greenhouse gas emissions through masked translators.
On Wednesday, the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases appeared more like allies in the fight against climate change than fierce rivals, with both Mr.
“We both see that the problem of climate change is existential and severe,” said Mr. Xie. As the world’s two great powers, China and the United States, we must take our responsibility and work together and work with others in a spirit of collaboration to address climate change.”
Tensions between the US and China are at their highest point in years. Mr. Kerry said he was “honest” about concerns about China’s treatment of Uighurs and other Turkish Muslims in the semi-autonomous province of Xinjiang, but said his focus was on being a “climate man”. He also said the two countries must work together to move away from fossil fuels, no matter what other problems arise.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described it as “an important step in the right direction”. Laurence Tubiana, former ambassador to France on climate change, said this showed “the two countries can cooperate to address the climate crisis”.
But experts agreed that the terms of the deal fell far short of a deal in which Mr. Kerry and Mr. Xie helped the intermediary in 2014, where both the United States and China jointly announced new targets to reduce emissions.
The moment was groundbreaking because China, as a developing country despite its rapidly rising emissions, was exempt from taking mandatory action to reduce emissions under UN climate body guidelines. The 2014 agreement spurred the Paris climate agreement, a year later, in which nearly 200 countries of all levels of wealth and responsibility agreed to take action to cause climate change.
Wednesday’s joint US-China declaration refers to the goal of net zero emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, saying both countries will “accelerate the transition to a global net zero economy.” It also calls on both countries to strengthen their emissions plans.
In addition, China has agreed to “progressively reduce” its coal consumption during its 15th Five-Year Plan, which will begin in 2026.
But the agreement made no new commitments on when to stop emitting larger amounts of fossil fuel emissions from China into the atmosphere and instead begin to reverse course.
China has said it will stop increasing its greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, which it usually refers to as the date when they will “peak”. But in Wednesday’s agreement, China did not specify exactly when that would happen, and American officials forced their colleagues to set a clear, earlier date.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry said the two countries had discussed the issue multiple times and insisted the new deal pushes China to bend its emissions curve downwards soon.
Manish Bapna, chair of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group, said the deal was “good news”. However, he said, “If we are to keep global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, we urgently need to see commitments of cooperation translate into bolder climate goals and reliable delivery.”
“It’s a climate ceasefire,” said Nick Mabey, executive director of climate change research group E3G.
Mabey said that while the deal isn’t a big deal for new climate action, it has geopolitical significance, signaling that China and the US are ending the “war of words” that contributed to tensions at the summit.
scientists said That allowing global temperatures to rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels sharply increases the risk of disasters such as deadly heat waves, water shortages and ecosystem collapse. The world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
China has resisted accepting its goal of keeping the temperature rise at 1.5 degrees because it required the country to make steeper and more urgent cuts than it has committed so far.
But in an important step, China has agreed to develop a “national plan” to cut methane, a potent greenhouse gas it hasn’t mentioned so far in its emissions reduction plans.
China’s current national targets to reduce emissions under the Paris agreement make no mention of methane, the second most potent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Methane is the main component of natural gas and is also released into the atmosphere from landfills, livestock and thawed permafrost.
But China has stopped participating in a global methane commitment. Mr Biden announced last weekMore than 100 countries say they will aim to reduce global methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030.
Speaking through a translator, Mr. Xie said, “There is more agreement between China and the United States than a breakup.” “We hope this joint declaration can contribute to the success of the summit,” he added, two days before the Glasgow summit for the participating countries to put together a global agreement.
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