US special envoy John Kerry in China to restart stalled climate talks

Issued on: 16/07/2023 – 16:52Modified: 16/07/2023 – 16:58

4 min

Kerry’s trip to Beijing is his third as President Joe Biden’s climate emissary and could mark a reboot of climate negotiations between China and the United States after a year of impasse. Beijing cut off key ties – including cooperation on climate matters – with Washington in August 2022 after then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, angering Beijing.

“China and the United States are the two largest economies in the world and we’re also the two largest emitters. It’s clear that we have a special responsibility to find common ground,” Kerry told The New York Times earlier this month.

Cooperation between the world’s biggest superpowers is crucial to tackling global warming, as extreme weather events become increasingly frequent and heatwaves sweep across the planet.

“First and foremost, it’s just very important that this meeting is happening,” said Joanna Lewis, an expert on Chinese climate policies at Georgetown University, to Reuters this week.  

“I think it is important that some sort of positive agenda comes out of this meeting, even if it is simply an agreement to continue to meet,” she said, speaking during a webinar on US-China climate cooperation.

Experienced negotiators

The former US secretary of state will aim to address several pressing issues during his visit: accelerating the elimination of coal usage, stepping up the fight against deforestation and the reduction of methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas that escapes into the atmosphere during oil and gas production. Another objective of the visit is to prepare the ground before COP28 in Dubai (from November 30 to December 12).

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Kerry will meet in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua. The two men have a good relationship and they have worked on some of the most important climate deals of the past decade together, including the Paris climate agreement of 2015, when governments agreed to limit the industrial era rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C. 

“John Kerry is also very popular in China and has always been praised,” said Jean-Joseph Boillot, an associate researcher at France’s Institute of International and Strategic Relations and a specialist on emerging economies. “It shows that, like in the United States, that there is no single Chinese bloc supporting confrontation between the two countries.”

Chinese coal addiction

While climate issues seem to offer possible common ground despite trade and security tensions between China and the US, deep differences continue to exist – particularly over the pace at which each country should curtail its fossil fuel emissions.

Despite its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China approved a surge in coal-fired power plants last year. Beijing aims to guarantee electricity supplies in case of a failure in renewable energies, of which China is the world’s largest producer. The return to coal, which accounts for 60% of Chinese electricity production, is fuelling fears that Beijing will renege on its previous climate pledges.

“These negotiations will not only focus on climate commitments since the Biden administration has already launched key climate programmes,” said Boillot, a reference to the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for American-made green tech.

Boillot went on to add, “Beijing will likely raise the issue of the technology war waged by the United States, which has significantly limited exports of high-tech products to China.”

Washington has been trying to prevent Beijing from becoming a dominant producer of vital electronic components that are indispensable to modern technologies.

The United States has also notably created a blacklist of Chinese companies it has accused of threatening its national security. It also banned products from half a dozen Chinese telecom firms from its territory in November 2022.

Read moreWhy semiconductors are central to world economy, geopolitics

Beijing struck back when it announced exporters would need approval to send certain gallium and geranium products overseas beginning on August 1. China produces 60% of the world’s germanium and 80% of its gallium, two critical metals that are key to technologies such as LED lamps, optical fibres or photovoltaic panels.

Thawing relations?

The US and China have resumed high-level contacts despite lingering tensions over Taiwan, trade or even accusations of espionage, thrown into sharp relief last February by the appearance of a Chinese “spy balloon” over the mainland United States.

Kerry’s visit is the third in just a few weeks by a US official to China. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping in June followed by a visit to Beijing by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July, when she advocated for direct dialogue between Beijing and Washington over economic concerns.

“The easing of tensions right now with Beijing is also linked to the war in Ukraine,” pointed out Boillot. “The US knows that China” – one of Moscow’s few remaining allies – “is one of the keys to the solution to the conflict”.

This article has been translated from the original in French.