As the Northern Hemisphere suffocates, the two biggest polluters on the planet resume their discussions on climate change. US climate envoy John Kerry met in Beijing on Tuesday (July 18) with the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomat, Wang Yi.
Mr. Kerry, who arrived in the Chinese capital on Sunday, was received by Mr. Wang at the People’s Palace. “Climate, you know, is a global issue, not a bilateral issue. It is a threat to humanity,” Mr. Kerry told his interlocutor.
A former secretary of state, the US envoy is making his third trip to Beijing since taking office in 2021. “We hope this meeting will mark the beginning of a new definition of [climate] cooperation and 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.
“A Common Challenge”
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 the challenges [of] coal and methane pollution,” he tweeted afterwards. “The climate crisis demands that the world’s two largest economies work together to limit global warming,” he added.
“Climate change is a common challenge for all mankind,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said during a regular briefing. China will “exchange with the United States on issues related to climate change and work with them to address the challenges and improve the well-being of current and future generations,” she said.
The climate dialogue was interrupted almost a year ago by China, which intended to protest against the trip to Taiwan of Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
The atmosphere now seems to be the resumption of exchanges, even if Washington wants to show 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.
Record temperature of 52.2°C in Xinjiang
“Every country, including China, has a responsibility to reduce its emissions,” Sullivan said, and “the world should encourage China even more – even pressure it – to take much more drastic measures to reduce emissions. its broadcasts. The world’s second-largest economy “still has work to do in this area,” he said.
Visits to China by senior American officials have multiplied in recent months to warm up diplomatic relations: the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, went there in June, then the American Secretary of the Treasury, 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.
