US-China thaw on climate change shifts the mood at COP26

It took more than 30 meetings over the course of a year to iron out one thing that the US and China can still agree about: fighting climate change.

John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the respective US and Chinese climate envoys, referenced those meetings as they reached a climate detente in the final days of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, despite conflict in almost every other arena.

Military tensions remain high, for example, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week warning against a return to the era of a cold war after China conducted hypersonic weapons tests in the summer and escalated its activities around Taiwan against US warnings.

“The US and China have no shortage of differences,” admitted Kerry at a press conference at COP26 on Wednesday. “But on climate, co-operation is the only way to get this job done.” 

The demonstration of co-operation on climate by Xie and Kerry, as the two envoys gave sequential press conferences on Wednesday night, sent a jolt through the conference venue, where officials were otherwise bogged down in tortuous details at the tail-end of the two week summit.

For many it recalled the moment when Xi and then US president Barack Obama made a joint statement in 2015, ahead of the Paris climate accord. Other countries fell into step after that move by the world’s two biggest emitters, to produce the Paris agreement on global warming.

But there were also key differences with the Xi-Obama statement in 2015. This time, the joint declaration did not include any major commitments.

While it was good news, and could help clear a few hurdles for the Glasgow negotiators, said Li Shuo, an adviser to Greenpeace China, it was inadequate in the effort to limit global warming to below 2C since pre-industrial times, or ideally 1.5C, as set out under the Paris accord.

“Both sides still fall well short of what’s needed in ambition,” Li said. “If we cut and paste what was issued yesterday [by the US and China], into the Glasgow [final] decisions, we will have trouble, the planet will have trouble.”

The declaration mainly reiterated previous climate pledges. Both countries promised to take “accelerated actions in the critical decade of the 2020s”, and repeated earlier commitments, such as ending international finance for unabated coal power plants.

China said for the first time that it would develop a national strategy next year for cutting methane emissions, but stopped short of joining the US-led global methane agreement.

The inclusion of a new working group as part of the declaration means that Xie and Kerry will continue to meet regularly next year.

“Both sides recognise there is a gap between the Paris effort and the climate goals,” said Xie, referring to the fact that countries’ emissions pledges were still short of what was needed to limit warming to 1.5C ideally.

“The release of this joint declaration shows again that co-operation is the only choice for both China and the US,” said Xie. “Both sides have demonstrated good faith, which enabled this joint declaration.”

China and the US are often on different sides of the negotiating table at the COP summits: China leads a powerful negotiating bloc of developing countries, the “G77 + China”, which often pushes for more climate finance.

Meanwhile, the US, which temporarily withdrew from the Paris climate accord during the Trump presidency, is a member of the “high-ambition coalition”, which advocates more emissions cuts.

While a range of leaders, from UN secretary-general António Guterres to UK prime minister Boris Johnson, praised the US-China statement on climate efforts, a number of experts agreed it did not go far enough.

Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and an architect of the 2015 Paris accord, said the impact of the US-China statement would be measured by the outcome of COP26.

“That means putting us on track to 1.5 degrees and delivering the vital support needed to those most vulnerable,” she said.

In what could be a further sign of rapprochement, on climate at least, Xi and US president Joe Biden are expected to hold a virtual summit early next week.

But immense challenges remain in de-escalating the multiple tensions in the relationship between the world’s biggest economies.

Since Biden took office, China has drawn sharp criticism for its expansive military activity, particularly around Taiwan and the South China Sea. The US has also taken a firm and public stance on the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the erosion of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.

Beijing, in response, has slammed the US for interfering in China’s strategic and domestic interests, and bristled at the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen regional alliances to counter China’s economic and military rise.

Despite the underlying tensions, Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, on Thursday said that under Biden the US was not seeking “conflict” with China but rather “healthy competition”.

“What we’re looking for is effective competition with guardrails and risk-reduction measures in place to ensure that things don’t veer off into conflict,” said Sullivan, speaking at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank.

He suggested the two countries could conceivably work together on several areas of common interest, “whether it’s on climate change, or on nuclear proliferation, or macroeconomic stability — or on other issues”.

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