China, US help break COP28 deadlock

When negotiations during the UN climate summit COP28 were at an impasse, China and the United States worked together, provided "some joint proposals to unlock the deadlock in the negotiations, and facilitated the success of the COP", said China's special envoy for climate change on Wednesday.

"Here in Dubai, we already fulfilled parts of what we agreed at Sunnylands (in a meeting last month) that is working together to promote a successful COP28," said envoy Xie Zhenhua, while thanking his US counterpart and his team for smooth collaboration.

Xie made his remarks in a dialogue with John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, as they jointly met the press after a historic deal was struck, following a deadlock at the COP28.

The two countries also agreed to "following the requirements of the Paris Agreement, and also the suggestions made in the outcome for the first Global Stocktake".

"China and the US will respectively reevaluate our respective long-term strategies for climate actions," he said, adding that they will update the nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, so as to better implement the Paris Agreement.

He said the two sides also agreed that they would operationalize their joint working group on climate change as soon as possible so that they can get some work started under four subworking groups, themed on energy transition, circular economy, methane emission control, and low carbon sustainable low-carbon sustainable provinces/states and cities, and in turn better implement their NDCs and promote the multilateral process.

Concrete actions

During their meeting, Kerry first introduced the status of collaboration in the field of climate change between the two countries. "First of all, with a great deal of back and forth, and in the weeks leading up, in the months leading up, we agreed to take concrete mitigation actions in parallel and to establish a working group to carry out pragmatic cooperation," he said.

Recently, China and the US released an agreement, that addressed the national actions of the two countries, such as the agreement to accelerate renewables, deployment to substitute for fossil fuels, and the elements that both considered should be included in the "Global Stocktake" in Dubai.

"We both hope and are pleased that we think our joint work not only advanced our respective national efforts but also reflected COP in many ways," Kerry said.

Under the instructions of Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, the two special envoys spent time together with their teams in Sunnylands, California, back in November. Based on the principle of upholding multilateralism and promoting the implementation of the Paris Agreement, they had "candid, frank, in-depth and friendly exchanges", Xie said. Finally, they adopted the China-US Joint Sunnylands Statement to address the climate crisis.

"In this joint Sunnylands statement, that we have both gained the approval from our presidents, we agreed that, first, we both reviewed our respective progress in implementing the Paris Agreement and the climate actions we have taken domestically, and we agreed that we will work together to support the UAE presidency in hosting a successful COP28," he said.