THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
COP
agreement was signed — to up-
date their carbon-cutting plans
before the end of next year.
If countries stick to their cur-
rent pledges, a U.N. report has
found, the world will probably
warm 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 de-
grees Fahrenheit) by the end of
the century, an amount that sci-
entists have said would lead to
ever more catastrophic effects.
Many activists and delegates
from vulnerable nations were un-
impressed with the overall shape
of the emerging deal. They noted
that even the reference to fossil
fuels, which includes no fixed
timeline, could get watered
down. And they criticized the rest
of the proposal, while still in flux,
as too weak.
Late Wednesday afternoon,
British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson returned to Glasgow to
make a final push as the negotia-
tions reach a critical point. He
acknowledged that whatever the
talks produce is “not going to
arrest climate change right here,
right now. That is just impossi-
ble.”
But he said negotiators must
find a way to shape an agreement
that moves the world in the right
direction.
“It is crucial now that we show
high ambition. That’s what we’re
trying to do. And the opportunity
is there,” Johnson said, adding
that the possibility of failure per-
sists. “The risk of sliding back, I
think, would be an absolute dis-
aster for the planet.”
For his part, Kerry said that
while many hurdles remain be-
fore anyone could declare the
Glasgow summit a success,
Wednesday’s formal partnership
with the Chinese can only help
the chances that world leaders
will choose solidarity.
“We could leave here not work-
ing together, the world wonder-
ing where the future is going to
be,” he said. “Or we can leave here
with people working together in
order to raise the ambition and
move down a better road.”
[email protected]
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[email protected]accelerate this transition and be-
gin to shrink its emissions, but
ultimately that was a decision for
its leaders. “We peaked on peak-
ing,” he joked.
But, Kerry said, China did com-
mit to rapidly developing a plan
to reduce its methane emissions
and dial down coal “as fast as is
achievable.” That commitment
does not mean China is joining a
U.S.-European pledge — signed
by more than 100 nations — to
reduce methane emissions by
nearly one-third by 2030. But it
signaled an important recogni-
tion from Beijing that methane
plays a key role in increasing
Earth’s warming.
Wednesday marked China’s
biggest s plash at a c limate confer-
ence where it has not had a major
presence over the past 10 days.
Representatives of other high-
emissions countries such as India
and Brazil have had high-profile
speaking engagements and fre-
quently wander the national pa-
vilions in the exhibition area.
Chinese negotiators have been
more active behind the scenes,
policymakers say.
One European negotiator said
the significance of the U.S.-China
accord was no guarantee that the
broader talks in Glasgow would
succeed. “It doesn’t mean they
found a deal on all problems
already,” the negotiator said in a
text message, speaking on the
condition of anonymity because
the official was not authorized to
comment publicly.
As negotiators from nearly 200
countries haggle over every line
and phrase of the international
agreement in the coming days,
the specifics of any final deal will
probably evolve.
The draft proposal released
Wednesday aims to make the
most ambitious goal of the 2015
Paris climate agreement — limit-
ing the average global tempera-
ture rise to no more than 1.5 de-
grees Celsius — achievable.
The text notes that current
national pledges are insufficient
to avert catastrophic warming
and urges countries — especially
those that have not adopted more
ambitious targets since the ParisFew details were immediately
available about the implications
of Wednesday’s declaration. For
example, it did not identify an
earlier date at which China’s car-
bon emissions will peak. The
country has said it plans to start
decreasing emissions by 2030, or
earlier if it can, and that it will
erase its carbon footprint by
2060.
Nor was it clear whether a
promise to cooperate on renew-
able energy meant that the Unit-
ed States is considering lifting
trade measures against Chinese-
made solar panels and other
green technology, a significant
irritant in the relationship.
Xie did not say whether China
would accept a clause in the draft
agreement that says countries
would agree to stop funding for
coal. China has done that for
foreign coal plants it was financ-
ing, but it has not agreed to halt
the construction of coal plants
domestically.
China is experimenting this
year with a carbon emissions
market in a bid to lower emis-
sions from its power sector. Xie
said if that is successful, China
would apply it to other parts of
the economy, starting with the
industrial sector.
Kerry said there were many
discussions about helping Chinaforces before with outsize influ-
ence, most notably when Presi-
dent Barack Obama and Chinese
President Xi Jinping forged a
similar partnership a year before
the Paris climate accord, helping
to make that landmark pact a
reality.
But the run-up to this confer-
ence has proved sharply differ-
ent.
A year ago, Donald Trump was
president and he had withdrawn
the United States from the Paris
accord. The coronavirus pandem-
ic had put global climate talks on
hold.
But even more recently, rela-
tions have been tense. The Biden
administration has maintained
Trump-era trade sanctions, in-
cluding ones imposed on China’s
exports of solar panels. China’s
crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrators in Hong Kong and
the mass imprisonment of ethnic
minority Uyghurs living in west-
ern China have exacerbated those
tensions.
In addition, the Chinese presi-
dent declined to travel to Glas-
gow — a blow to early hopes that
COP26 would forge a far-reach-
ing agreement to catapult the
world back onto a more sustain-
able trajectory. During his time in
Glasgow, President Biden called
Xi’s absence a “big mistake.”said the joint declaration was a
product of nearly three dozen
negotiating sessions over the
course of the year. While many of
those meetings were virtual, U.S.
and Chinese diplomats also had
face-to-face talks in China, Lon-
don and during the Glasgow sum-
mit.
The declaration also marked a
payoff for the men who an-
nounced it. Kerry has spent this
year pursuing extensive personal
diplomacy, and he has broken
with other Biden administration
aides to advocate robust engage-
ment with China on climate is-
sues. Meanwhile, Xie — a veteran
Chinese climate negotiator who
led his delegation at previous
talks in Copenhagen and Paris —
came out of retirement to man-
age China’s climate diplomacy in
the run-up to the high-profile
talks in Glasgow.
The news drew various reac-
tions on Wednesday night, from
outright praise to skepticism over
whether the agreement would
lead to new and concrete action.
“Tackling the climate crisis re-
quires international cooperation
and solidarity, and this is an
important step in the right direc-
tion,” U.N. Secretary General
António Guterres tweeted.
“This is a challenge which tran-
scends politics,” tweeted the E.U.'s
top climate envoy, Frans Timmer-
mans. “Bilateral cooperation be-
tween the two biggest global
emitters should boost negotia-
tions at #COP26.”
Manish Bapna, president of
the Natural Resources Defense
Council, agreed that having the
United States and China on the
same page on climate change
trumps having them at odds. But,
he added in a statement, if the
world is to meet the goals it set six
years ago in Paris, “we urgently
need to see commitments to co-
operate translate into bolder cli-
mate targets and credible deliv-
ery.”
China and the United States,
which together account for about
40 percent of the world’s emis-
sions, are central to any interna-
tional accord on climate change.
The two nations have joinedhave no shortage of differences,”
U.S. special climate envoy John F.
Kerry said in announcing the
agreement Wednesday evening.
“But on climate, cooperation is
the only way to get this job done.”
The United States and China,
plus other major emitters such as
the European Union, have come
under fire in recent days for not
yet delivering on some of the lofty
rhetoric their officials showcased
last week.
But many leaders have demon-
strated a willingness during
COP26 to go further than they
have before, as shown by a new
draft of the agreement released
by the conference’s president,
Alok Sharma, b arely 12 hours
before the U.S.-China declaration
came out.
The draft, which Sharma said
he hoped would be signed by the
end of the week, proposed a
breakthrough not seen in three
decades of U.N. climate negotia-
tions: an explicit acknowledg-
ment that nations must phase out
coal-burning faster and stop sub-
sidizing fossil fuels.
“It’s fossil fuels that cause cli-
mate change,” said Mohamed
Adow, director of the Kenya-
based think tank Power Shift
Africa. “Explicitly mentioning it
gets on the path to addressing it.”
Many nations have come un-
der scrutiny at the summit, but
few have faced closer examina-
tion than the United States and
China.
Speaking before Kerry at an
unannounced news conference,
Chinese special climate envoy Xie
Zhenhua said that as superpow-
ers, the two countries have a
special obligation to work togeth-
er on keeping the world a peace-
ful and sustainable place.
“We need to think big and be
responsible,” Xie said, adding,
“We both see that the challenge of
climate change is an existential
and severe one.” He acknowl-
edged that “both sides recognize
there is a gap between the current
efforts and the Paris agreement
goals.”
Both envoys on Wednesday
CLIMATE FROM A
U.S., China announce a joint e≠ort to slow climate change
JEFF J. MITCHELL/POOL/REUTERS
“ We can leave here with people working together in order to raise
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