The United States and China have resumed climate talks amid friction in recent hours at the Egypt Climate Summit (COP27) over whether the largest emitters of greenhouse gases should contribute to helping nations bearing the brunt of the effects of global warming.
China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua confirmed Saturday in a press briefing that he has renewed collaboration between the two countries as tensions between developing and developed countries strain negotiations at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention being held in Sharm el-Sheikh.
The thaw in relations between the two countries follows a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 meeting in Indonesia earlier this week.
U.S.-China cooperation on the climate issue in 2014 provided a key foundation for the Paris Agreement a year later, and elements of a joint statement issued by the two countries last year were adopted in the Glasgow agreement.
Xie has said that the two countries have agreed to put the issue of how to address loss and damage in developing countries as a result of climate change on the formal negotiating agenda. However, he also stressed that any new agreement should look in the mirror of Paris in holding developed countries accountable to contribute.
«The responsibility to provide finance rests with developed countries and it is their responsibility and obligation,» Xie said Saturday, Bloomberg reports. «Developing countries should contribute on a voluntary basis. The Paris Agreement made that very clear,» he has insisted.
Precisely, the question of whether developing countries with high emissions, such as China, should contribute or not is one of the sticking points at this COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh. The European Union is pushing in the formal language of the agreement to expand the donor base in any new program to compensate for loss and damage, and the United States has also repeatedly said that China should contribute to the financing of any loss and damage program.
The Chinese representative has advocated that his country has provided support to other developing nations in the form of aid for early warning systems, carbon emission reduction projects and renewable energy development.
Xie added that discussions with his U.S. counterpart, John Kerry, will continue after the COP27 meeting. «We have agreed that after this COP we will continue our formal consultations,» he confirmed.
For the time being, the climate envoys have continued to work on their bilateral relationship, which Xie said has now lasted more than 20 years. Xie summarized that the US-China talks have been «candid, friendly, positive» and marked by «active dialogue».
On Thursday night Kerry spent at least two and a half hours behind closed doors talking with Xie and late Friday night, the U.S. Secretary of State is in isolation because he tested positive for COVID-19.
The Chinese representative thanked the Egyptian presidency for the conduct of the negotiations with an «open and transparent» process but also criticized it for failing to engage ministers sufficiently to achieve a sufficiently critical draft text. «Everyone is working very hard to promote progress at this conference,» he has assured.
