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US-China Representatives Meet to Discuss Climate Change
The world's two biggest economies, and emitters of carbon, seek a cooperative plan to face climate threats.
Josiah Simons
November 08, 2023
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The Story: John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the climate representatives for the United States and China, met this weekend to begin high-stakes diplomatic discussions to address human-caused climate change. Their conversations promise to play a pivotal role in shaping the UN’s climate summit in Dubai later this month.
China and the US are the world's two largest economies as well as the world's largest carbon emitters. The meeting between Kerry and Zhenhua was crucial for establishing basic agreements between the two nations to determine how to curb the climate crisis.
The US has been particularly concerned about China's rapid approval of new coal-powered plants, given that coal is an exceptionally carbon-intensive energy source, and these plants are likely to remain operational for decades.
Although details about what was discussed in meetings is unknown, China released a statement on Monday pledging to track and reduce the emissions produced by methane, which is estimated to be responsible for 1/3rd of the rise of global temperatures.
Li Shuo, a policy advisor at Greenpeace, emphasized the crucial role the U.S. and China play in the fight against climate change. He says, "The success of the global climate process needs the U.S. and China to talk to each other.”
The Expert Take: Oliver Libby, managing partner at H/L Ventures, believes this meeting was “crucially important,” and is optimistic about a relationship forming between the two countries:
“The relationship between the United States and China… has been at times quite fraught. But it doesn’t mean that the two nations don’t have some shared interests in common and actually climate change and the new energy economy has recently been an area where there’s been more overlap.”
Although Libby has been impressed with China’s willingness to pioneer and deploy new climate technologies, he doesn’t believe the US and China share the same motives:
Let’s make no mistake—China has a very specific view of protecting its national interests and it’s not going to do these things because we ask. It’s not going to do these things because it gets pressure from the international community. It’s going to do these things because it assesses a real risk from climate change and accepts that it can have a major effect on whether or not it happens and how bad it gets.”
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