US climate envoy Kerry says China has invited him for talks
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US climate envoy John Kerry says the two biggest contributors to the climate problem need to be able to come together and work to try and help resolve it.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BERLIN – United States climate envoy John Kerry said on Wednesday that China has invited him to visit “in the near term” for talks on averting a global environmental crisis, even as diplomatic relations between the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters remain tense.
The US and China must work together to address climate change, Mr Kerry said in an interview on the sidelines of a conference on global warming in Berlin.
US President Joe Biden has authorised the meeting, but the timing remains to be determined and certain issues must still be clarified, Mr Kerry said.
China, for example, first must issue its plan to reduce methane emissions and advance in the transition away from coal.
“This has to be cooperative, notwithstanding other differences that do exist,” added Mr Kerry. “This is not a bilateral issue. This is a universal global threat to everybody in every nation.”
Referring to the US and China, the former US secretary of state said: “The two biggest economies, biggest contributors to that problem need to be able to come together and work to try to help resolve it.”
He said the US may be able to help China with its methane strategy, a policy that Beijing was due to have announced in 2022 but did not.
In 2022, China briefly suspended talks with the US
Although China subsequently resumed those talks, relations between the two countries deteriorated again after what the US described as a Chinese spy balloon traversed American airspace in February, prompting Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a scheduled visit to Beijing.
The State Department has since then expressed a desire to reschedule Mr Blinken’s visit, though no date has been set. Mr Blinken said on Wednesday that he hopes to be able to reschedule it for some time in 2023.
Mr Kerry held a virtual conversation with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua “just a week or two ago”.
“China has invited me to visit in the near term to be able to meet with him (Mr Xie)... to work on work that we’ve been doing for several years, which is trying to find the pathway forward to be able to cooperate in ways that are beneficial to the world. And hopefully, we’ll be able to do that,” he said.
Mr Kerry also briefly spoke to the Chinese representative attending the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office.
Asked if China offered a constructive approach, Mr Kerry said it was too early to tell. “I have to get into the meeting, I have to figure out exactly where we are.
“We’re not pointing fingers and we’re not out there trying to, you know, make this part of the other issues that are out there (between the US and China).
“This (climate change) is a free-standing issue that affects China as it affects the US.”
‘Frightening’ to overshoot target
China did not appear to have “fully embraced” the global goal agreed at a United Nations summit in France in 2015 of limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C, Mr Kerry said.
“It has embraced the UN Paris terminology, which is well below 2 deg C, and leaves up for grabs what that might mean,” he said of China. “To me, there is certainly no way that ‘well below 2’ is 1.9 or 1.8 or 1.7.”
Mr Kerry said the ability to actually achieve that target, however, was “on the borderline right now”.
“Some scientists will tell you we’ve already blown past it. Others will suggest... we may shoot past it, but come back to it because of the technologies and other capacities we have to deploy clean energy.”
Overshooting is a “frightening prospect”, Mr Kerry said, given the irreversible effects of passing a tipping point, like the melting of polar ice caps.
Thus, the next global climate conference, COP28, scheduled for Nov 30 to Dec 10 in the United Arab Emirates, is “critical” and the most important since 2015, he added.
COP28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber has faced criticism for also being the head of the United Arab Emirates’ oil giant, but Mr Kerry said the COP offers “an opportunity for us to bring people to the table who have not been part of the process”.
Mr Kerry said he supports Germany’s proposal at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue to set a goal at COP28 to treble renewable energy by 2030, noting Europe’s largest economy was a trendsetter in this regard. REUTERS
