The United States and China will try to resume efforts to fight global warming this week in bilateral meetings that observers hope will raise the bar on ambitions ahead of United Nations-sponsored climate talks in late 2023.
The talks follow two other high-level US visits to China this year as the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases work to stabilize a relationship strained by trade disputes, military tensions and spying allegations.
John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate change, will participate in bilateral talks with China’s climate change official Xie Zhenhua in Beijing from July 16-19. They will focus on issues such as: reducing methane emissions; limiting the use of charcoal; reducing deforestation; and helping poor countries deal with the climate.
The pair, who have cultivated a warm relationship over more than two decades of diplomacy, are also likely to discuss China’s objections to US tariffs and other restrictions on imports of Chinese battery and solar panel components, observers say.
Washington is trying to protect US manufacturers from low-cost competitors in China, including those it suspects of using forced labor, which Beijing denies.
“I wouldn’t look for breakthroughs in these meetings, but my hope is that they restore normal alignment and diplomacy,” said David Sandalow, director of the US-China program at the Center for Global Energy Policy.
Kerry addressed his goals for the China trip at a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, saying, “What we’re trying to achieve now is really establishing some stability with the relationship without compromising anything.”
Republicans have accused the Biden administration of being too soft on Beijing on climate diplomacy, arguing that China continues to increase its greenhouse gas emissions while the United States imposes costly measures to clean up.
Kerry is the third US official, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, to visit China this year to try to restore a stable bilateral relationship.
Both countries say they should be able to collaborate on climate change, regardless of other disagreements.
Li Shuo, from Greenpeace in Beijing, explained that the scheduled talks show that climate change “is still the touchstone for the most important bilateral relationship in the world”.
Ties
The US-China talks have a track record of boosting global climate talks, including laying the groundwork for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, when governments agreed to limit the industrial-age rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C. W.
However, broader tensions have since cooled the relationship, including former President Donald Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods, including solar panels; former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year; and a US law blocking imports of products from the Xinjiang region, where Washington believes forced labor is used.
Following Pelosi’s August 2022 trip to Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, Beijing said it would stop all dialogue with Washington on climate change. The two countries only resumed informal climate talks in November at the COP27 summit in Egypt.
The passage in the United States of the broad Inflation Reduction Act, whose tax credits for domestic clean energy production are aimed at countering China’s dominance in the sector and reviving American manufacturing, has also heightened tensions.
And while China has added more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined, it has also made a strong foray back into coal – a major concern for Washington.
In 2022, China issued its highest number of new permits for coal plants since 2015, according to the Center for Research in Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
“While the US raises the issue of halting new-generation coal development, it seems unlikely that China will provide any guarantees on this matter,” quoted Alden Meyer, senior associate at think tank E3G and a longtime observer of climate talks.
“And while China is likely to raise the issue of US tariffs on Chinese solar technology, the US is unlikely to announce any changes on that front.”
During Yellen’s visit last month, she made a public effort to get China to participate in UN-administered funds to help poorer nations deal with climate change. China, which considers itself a developing nation, has resisted.
Fang Li, director of China at the World Resources Institute, said she also hopes the United States will pressure China to strengthen its national climate pledge under the Paris accord, but may face reluctance from a Chinese side irritated by US trade barriers.
Source: CNN Brasil
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