BEIJING: China said Thursday that climate talks with the United States had been a success, following talks aimed at strengthening cooperation between the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters.
The talks between the top officials come ahead of a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week, as the two powers seek to improve ties after years of frosty relations.
Beijing’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment said meetings between US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua “ended successfully” on Wednesday.
The two sides “engaged in a comprehensive, in-depth exchange of views”, it said, adding they “achieved positive results on developing bilateral climate change cooperation and action”.
Beijing and Washington agreed to “jointly push for the success of the COP28 conference”, the ministry said.
China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, has pledged to peak emissions of carbon dioxide by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.
Countries will gather in the United Arab Emirates at the end of the month for the COP28 summit aimed at building consensus for limiting global warming.
And success at that summit will hinge on agreement between the US and China, currently working to patch up relations that sunk to some of their deepest lows in recent years over a host of issues including trade, human rights and national security.
Washington sent a number of top officials to Beijing this year in a bid to reestablish high-level dialogue.
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Chinese Vice President Han Zheng this week said his country was open to talks with the United States at “all levels”.
Neither the United States nor China have officially confirmed the upcoming Biden-Xi talks.
But informed sources said Wednesday that the two sides had made arrangements to hold the meeting on November 15 on the sidelines of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which the United States is hosting.
‘Not smooth’
Asked to confirm whether the summit would go ahead, China’s foreign ministry Wednesday said the “road to San Francisco is not smooth, and we cannot be on autopilot”.
“Both sides must… truly implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, eliminate interference and overcome obstacles, enhance consensus and accumulate results,” he said, alluding to a meeting between Xi and Biden in Indonesia last year – the last time they met.
Biden and Xi both spoke positively about those talks, saying they were looking for ways to avoid conflict.
And the Chinese leader last month stressed that “we have 1,000 reasons to improve China-US relations, but not one reason to ruin them”.
China has been outraged by growing US pressure to contain it globally across a range of sectors.
This includes US restrictions on high-tech chips, which Washington fears Beijing will put to military use.
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