US climate envoy John Kerry hopes to meet Chinese counterpart at COP27 despite suspension of talks
- ‘I still genuinely hope that we will come together, and China and the United States will find the opportunity to do some work together,’ Kerry says
- China ended bilateral discussions in August as part of its retaliation for US House speaker’s visit to Taiwan
China and the United States must find opportunities to work together to address the global climate crisis, John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said ahead of the United Nations climate summit next week.
China suspended bilateral talks on climate issues in August, one of several measures taken in retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. But both nations are expected to attend the UN summit.
“China and the United States – the two biggest economies in the world, the two biggest [greenhouse gas] emitters in the world, 40 per cent of all emissions – need to be moving aggressively in the same direction,” Kerry said at an event hosted by London-based think tank Chatham House on Thursday.
“We have argued adamantly that it’s not a bilateral relation, it’s a multilateral global threat,” he said. “I still genuinely hope that we will come together, and China and the United States will find the opportunity to do some work together.”
At the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which begins on November 6, policymakers and world leaders will decide the next steps in response to the climate crisis, and how to maintain the global warming level to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius by mid-century, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.
The conference is considered a key opportunity for collective global action. Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua had been expected to hold talks, but Kerry indicated it was unclear that they would.