John Kerry, US envoy for the climate, went to Beijing (China) to negotiate new cooperation between Chinese and Americans, despite their differences, this time on environmental issues. The Democrat also explained that global warming was, in his view, “a threat to humanity”.
John Kerry, who arrived in China this Sunday, July 16, met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on Tuesday as the world’s two main polluters try to resume dialogue, after several months of diplomatic cooling. The two men shook hands and exchanged a few words before starting a meeting at the People’s Palace, an imposing building that dominates Tiananmen Square.
“You are our old friend,” Wang Yi told John Kerry, who enjoys a rather cordial and unbroken relationship with China. Former Secretary of State, the American envoy is making his third trip to Beijing since taking office in 2021.
“Climate, you know, is a global issue, not a bilateral issue. It’s a threat to humanity,” Kerry told his interlocutor, as parts of the northern hemisphere are experiencing extreme temperatures. John Kerry, whose trip to Beijing ends on Wednesday, called for “urgent climate action” between China and the United States, the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters. “We (Americans) hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a new definition of cooperation (on climate) and the ability to resolve the differences between us,” insisted John Kerry.
“The cooperation on climate change is progressing between China and the United States, so we need the joint support of the peoples of both countries,” said Wang Yi. “There needs to be a healthy, stable and lasting relationship between China and the United States,” he warned, however.
On Monday, John Kerry spoke for four hours with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, according to state television CCTV. Washington and Beijing “must take urgent action on a number of fronts, particularly on coal and methane pollution,” the US envoy said on Twitter.
“The climate crisis demands that the world’s two largest economies work together to limit global warming,” he added. The Climate Dialogue was halted almost a year ago when China suspended it in protest at the trip to Taiwan of Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives. The atmosphere now seems to be the resumption of trade, even if Washington wants to display its firmness in this area.
John Kerry will call on China “not to hide behind the assertion that it is a developing country” to play down its commitment against climate change, announced on CNN on Sunday Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser of the American president. “Every country, including China, has a responsibility to reduce its emissions,” Sullivan said.
Visits to China by senior US officials have increased in recent months to warm diplomatic relations: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went there in June, then US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in early July. Mr. Kerry’s trip to this country comes at a time when the impact of climate change is particularly felt on the planet, with heat waves in many parts of the world including China. A temperature record for mid-July was thus broken in the semi-desert region of Xinjiang (west) with 52.2 ° C recorded on Sunday.
