The US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry has questioned China on its continued use of coal but praised its renewables growth.
Kerry said in a tweet on 18 July that he hopes the US-China climate talks in Beijing this week can “renew cooperation on reducing emissions” between the world’s two largest economies.
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“The climate crisis demands that the world’s two largest economies work together to limit the Earth’s warming. We must take urgent action on a number of fronts, especially the challenges of coal and methane pollution,” he tweeted.
Relations between the two nations have grown tense over recent months with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken holding talks with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi to manage competition between the two nations.
The countries are the two largest greenhouse gas emitters globally. In 2021, China’s fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide emissions reached 12.5 gigatonnes (Gt) compared with 8.8Gt for the US.
Kerry praised China on the “incredible job” it has done on renewables. China is on track to shatter its own target of installing 1.2 terawatt-hours of renewable energy ahead of 2030, according to a report from Global Energy Monitor.
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By GlobalDataHowever,“the current pace and scale [of renewables development] is not yet sufficient to ensure that coal becomes a truly ‘supporting’ power source”, the report states.
China gave permits to more coal plants in 2022 than at any time in the past seven years, or the equivalent of two new coal plants per week, according to a separate report from Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, published in March.
Climate cooperation
According to Kerry, “the world is looking to the US and China to cooperate in the fight against the climate crisis”.
Campaigners want the two governments to collaborate on climate action ahead of the COP28 UN climate conference taking place at the end of this year in Dubai.
Representatives from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Kenya, Malawi and Vanuatu last week called on COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber to ensure an ambitious COP28.
China has experienced months of record-breaking heat and extreme weather with temperatures reaching as high as 52.2⁰C this week. The country has recorded its hottest June since 2000. In Beijing, temperatures exceeded 35⁰C for 14 consecutive days, the highest number of hot days since records began in 1961.
“Floods and intensive storms happen with greater frequency than ever before… Fires devour millions of acres of forest every year,” said Kerry on Monday, Reuters reports. “It is toxic for both Chinese and for Americans and for people in every country on the planet.”
“In the next three days we hope we can begin taking some big steps that will send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of China and the United States to address a common risk, threat, challenge to all of humanity created by humans themselves,” he added.
