COP27: top Chinese and US climate envoys hold informal talks, potentially setting stage for Biden-Xi meeting during G20 summit in Bali
- Xie Zhenhua is a friend of mine, certainly ready to negotiate, John Kerry tells COP27
- China and US are working to arrange talks between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping during the two-day Group of 20 summit in Bali, which starts on November 15
The top climate envoys of China and the United States have held informal talks on climate cooperation, in a sign that tentative steps are being taken to pave the way for negotiations by the top leaders of the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters later this month.
“Xie Zhenhua is genuinely a friend of mine … I certainly stand ready to negotiate. As we’ve said, climate crisis is not a bilateral issue,” he said.
China and the US are working to arrange talks between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping during the two-day Group of 20 summit in Bali, which starts on November 15, the South China Morning Post has learned. COP27 is expected to close on November 18.
“We were poised to deploy a major negotiating session doing something for [COP27], and that did get interrupted by [Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s] trip to Taiwan,” Kerry said. “We’ll see what happens in the next few days.”