U.S. climate envoy John Kerry kicked off a visit to China by urging the world’s largest carbon emitter to do more to curb its discharges.
Kerry and Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed “bilateral and multilateral efforts to raise climate ambition and address the global climate crisis” in a video call, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said Thursday. The U.S. special presidential envoy for climate is visiting the port city of Tianjin this week for meetings with counterpart Xie Zhenhua.
Wang used the video call to reiterate China’s view that Washington must take the first step to improve ties that frayed during the Trump administration, when a trade war erupted.
“China-U.S. climate change cooperation cannot be separated from the general environment of relations,” he said. “The United States should meet China halfway and take positive actions to push relations back on track.”
Kerry is on the second leg of a trip to Asia to discuss climate commitments before an international summit in Scotland later this year. The visits to Tokyo and Tianjin come a few weeks after the release of a report by the world’s top climate scientists, who warned the Earth would warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades without drastic efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that the past decade was most likely hotter than any period in the last 125,000 years.
China has said its has targeted peak emissions before 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2060. Vice Premier Han Zheng last week ordered a curb on new projects that fail to meet standards on total energy consumption and energy intensity.
