The agreement, announced at the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, aims to accelerate emission reductions towards the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The deal blamed governments around the world for emission reductions that would keep the global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times, with a target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Kerry also expressed confidence that the terms of this agreement and COP26 will be translated into action. But China refused to join a deal earlier this week to limit methane — a harmful greenhouse gas. The agreement has been signed by nearly 100 other countries. Instead, China has pledged to develop a “national plan” to combat methane. Several experts said the joint pact between China and the United States did not lead to a 2014 agreement between the United States and China to jointly reduce emissions, which helped advance the Paris Climate Agreement among nearly 200 countries a year later. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are likely to demand significant changes to the project as talks enter their final, most difficult phase. Traditionally, a new global agreement requires each party to sign. When a nation opposes it, conversations can lead to a dead end.
Nevertheless, the joint agreement lacked details. It did not snatch a new timetable from China that the country would reduce its emissions, nor did it set a cap on the level of its carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases before they began to fall. China has agreed to “phase out” coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, from 2026, but has not specified to what extent or over what period of time. As part of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, all countries agreed that humanity should limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, while “continuing efforts” to keep warming at just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Eu climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said it was “really encouraging” to see how China and the US are working together. “It also shows that the U.S. and China know that this issue goes beyond other issues. And it certainly helps us here at the COP to reach an agreement,” he added. “The current state of geopolitics between China and the United States is terrible, so the fact that you can extract that.
An agreement between Washington and Beijing is [important] right now,” he said. Kerry said China`s willingness to cooperate, its current level of emissions and its history of “exceeding its own targets” make the deal more ambitious than its critics realize. He also stressed the importance of the agreement in reducing methane emissions. This is the first time the Chinese government has promised to solve the problem, and it`s an issue for which the U.S. has announced new rules for this month. Much of the wording of the agreement is still not quantified. For example, China pledges to reduce its coal consumption and “do everything possible to accelerate this work.” At a time when China and the United States are at odds over other international issues, the agreement declares its intention to take “concrete steps” to reduce and limit emissions. The two countries would share political and technological development, announce new national targets for 2035 by 2025 and relaunch a “multilateral” working group on climate change. With nearly 200 countries battling each other in global climate talks, the world`s two biggest polluters are signing an agreement, but there was a lack of details. The agreement is also a recognition by both sides that there is a huge gap between countries` previous efforts to limit emissions and what science deems necessary for a safer world.
China`s leaders will have to understand in a short period of time that there is no way for China to maintain and improve its position in the world, with rich and poor countries beginning to wreak widespread havoc as climate change begins, and China stands out as the dominant polluter who refused to do what needed to be done. If we get to this dangerous place, the conventional rhetoric of the UN climate negotiations – where traditionally all the blame has been placed on both developed and developing countries (as listed in the original 1992 treaty) have been considered harmless – will be useless. The public at this point will be the world, from citizens to leaders, not UN negotiators. China, the world`s largest economy at this point, will have no place to hide. Citing chapters and verses from old climate agreements to justify inadequate action will not work. Under the Obama administration, the U.S.-China climate relationship has been at the heart of global progress, culminating in the Paris Climate Agreement. The administration immediately began to develop this relationship: since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton`s first trip to China in February 2009; at my first meeting in March 2009 with my Chinese counterpart, Minister Xie Zenhua, where I proposed to make climate a positive pillar in an often tense relationship; the creation of a new U.S.-China Task Force on Climate Change by Secretary of State John Kerry; on the historic joint announcement by Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in Beijing in November 2014; and the Paris Agreement itself a year later. The way we work together has never been easy; Xie and I always fought until the last two days of negotiations in Paris in 2015. But both sides understood over time that in the end we would find a way to reach an agreement.
The two men have a long working relationship and deserve to be congratulated for the signing of the Paris Agreement and the joint announcement made in 2014 by the United States and China that helped lay the diplomatic foundations for it. Their warmth certainly contrasts with the words of US President Joe Biden. A week earlier, at a press conference in Glasgow, Biden was referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said, “They didn`t show up” It`s a gigantic problem and they left. “The reaction to this surprising deal has been largely positive, but experts and activists have warned that guidelines must now be issued to support the promises. In the near future, competing and cooperative climate dynamics will have to coexist. Indeed, a race to the top, with healthy competition for the use of clean technologies in the markets of developing countries that desperately need new investment in infrastructure, should be welcomed by all. The hope of this new agreement is that it will be possible to create spaces of conflict and rivalry without taking the planet hostage. Closing that gap means a solid deal here in Glasgow. The deal was welcomed at the climate summit by leaders and diplomats who hoped it would bring new energy to global negotiations aimed at keeping rising global temperatures at dangerous levels. With the summit just days to go, negotiators are working late into the night to try to reach a global agreement that they hope can satisfy any country – which is not an easy task. It could have been much worse.
At this critical juncture, talks between the world`s two carbon superpowers – which together account for about 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – could easily have entered a blame game and stalemate that would have seriously delayed global efforts. Instead, the surprising agreement between China and the United States, announced Wednesday night, offers new hope for joint leadership. After the difficult years of Donald Trump`s presidency and the impact of Covid-19 on the negotiations themselves and the poor countries hardest hit by the climate crisis, confidence in multilateralism is at stake. .