Top US, Chinese climate diplomats agree to promote cooperation

Washington [US], May 11 : Climate diplomats of the US and China held talks and confirmed bilateral cooperation in reducing greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, such as methane emitted from fossil fuel production, the State Department said.

Biden administration's top climate diplomat John Podesta and China's special envoy for climate change Liu Zhenmin co-led the US-China Working Group discussions on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s that was held in Washington DC on May 8-May 9.

This marked the first in-person talks between Podesta and Liu held in the backdrop of rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Podesta was cited as saying by the Financial Times that the meetings had been "in-depth and productive".

"We have to get the climate problem under control, and there are no more important countries than the US and China to lead the way - even as our overall relationship between our two countries has increasingly been characterised by fierce competition," Podesta said as reported by the Financial Times.

After US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing stopped all climate talks with Washington. However, ahead of the United Nations' COP28 summit in Dubai last year US and China reached the Sunnylands agreement.

The May 8-9 in-depth discussions in Washington recalled the 2023 San Francisco summit between US President Joe Biden with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and focused on areas identified in the Sunnylands Statement.

These include energy transition, methane and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases, circular economy and resource efficiency, deforestation, and low-carbon and sustainable provinces states and cities, the White House said.

Cooperating on multilateral issues related to promoting a successful COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year was also discussed, the statement read.

Podesta, the senior advisor to Biden for International Climate Policy and Liu and China's Special Envoy for Climate Change "exchanged experiences and challenges concerning their respective climate policies and actions, to respond meaningfully to the climate crisis and beyond."

The two sides welcomed the call in COP 28's Global Stocktake decision for parties to submit on time 2035 nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that are economy-wide, cover all greenhouse gases, and hold global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. The US and China were among the countries that reached a deal to transition away from fossil fuels to reach the goal of global net zero by the year 2050.

During their meeting in Washington, this week, the American and Chinese sides further expressed their intention to engage in related technical and policy exchanges.

"The two sides exchanged experiences and challenges concerning their respective climate policies and actions, and expressed their intention to intensify technical and policy exchanges on emission reduction, energy conservation, etc," a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US said after the meetings.

Both US and China said they will host a high-level event on Subnational Climate Action on May 29-30, in California and will host a second "Methane and Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases Summit" at COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan this November.

Meanwhile, US President Biden has promised new measures to shield steel mills, automakers and other American companies against what he calls trade "cheating" by Beijing, according to the New York Times. The measures are expected to be announced early next week and will include tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other goods as Biden looks for ways to protect America's nascent clean energy sector from a surge of cheap Chinese imports, the US daily reported citing sources.

The US and the European Union have often expressed their concern over "industrial overcapacity" in China that is impacting their domestic companies.

US Treasury Secretary Janet L Yellen met with the Economic Working Group (EWG) and Financial Working Group (FWG) between the US and China in April this year following her trip to Beijing and Guangzhou. "The US delegation continued to express concerns about China's non-market practices and industrial overcapacity," the US Treasury Department had said after the meeting.

"Both sides agreed to further discuss these issues," according to a readout on the meeting.

In a meeting between Xi Jinping and President Emmanuel Macron of France, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, urged the visiting Chinese President to address "the wave of subsidized exports flowing from his nation's factories into Western countries," NYT reported.

"These subsidized products such as the electric vehicles or, for example, steel are flooding the European market," von der Leyen said. "The world cannot absorb China's surplus production." von der Leyen was cited in the US daily.

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