(AFP) – China and the United States have agreed to launch a working group on climate cooperation, both countries said Wednesday, ahead of a United Nations climate summit this month. In a joint statement published in Chinese state media and released by the US State Department, the two governments said the group would focus on “energy transition, methane, circular economy and resource efficiency, low-carbon and sustainable provinces/states and cities, and deforestation”. It will see them “engage in dialogue and cooperation to accelerate concrete climate actions”, the statement said.
The statement follows talks between US and Chinese climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua at the Sunnylands retreat in California from November 4 to 7. The two sides agreed to “work together and with other parties” to “rise up to one of the greatest challenges of our time for present and future generations of humankind”, the statement said. They will also restart “bilateral dialogues on energy policies and strategies”, it pledged, and “deepen policy exchanges on energy-saving and carbon-reducing solutions”. The United States and China said they will “immediately initiate technical working group cooperation” on the reduction of methane, of which China is the world’s biggest emitter.
Beijing last week unveiled a broad plan to control its emissions of the gas, though it offered no specific target for reducing them. But in their joint statement, the two sides agreed to “develop their respective methane reduction actions/targets” for inclusion in their 2035 emission-cutting plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. Countries are set to meet in Dubai later this month for the COP28 summit. With temperatures soaring and 2023 expected to become the warmest year so far in human history, scientists say the pressure on world leaders to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution has never been more urgent.
