‘We need to get China’: John Kerry calls for return to bilateral climate talks | John Kerry | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/25/john-kerry-china-return-climate-talksChina’s freeze with the US should not, in theory, affect negotiations on the climate crisis, which are supposed to be held in a separate bubble from other geopolitical concerns.
But Kerry said China had in effect stopped negotiating with the US on climate issues, as well as on other matters. He said: “It’s been impossible, really. China has pulled out of the talks for now.”
Some sections of the Chinese government were pursuing “wolf diplomacy”, he said, by which climate was treated “like all the other issues” and subject to a “suspension [though] not a termination”.
Kerry said: “I personally vehemently disagree with that. Climate is a universal issue, a universal threat. Without political ideology, without political party. It does not represent global competition. It represents a global threat to the world, which the two largest emitters and two largest economies could greatly benefit the world by coming together and cooperating to try to deal with it.”
The rupture between China and the US came just as cooperation between the two was looking more promising than it had done for years. At the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last November, the two countries astonished observers with the sudden announcement of a bilateral pact. They agreed to work on clean technology, methane and other ways of reducing emissions.