Climate lobby eager for Beijing to look past Pelosi visit

Cooperation with Washington is regarded as key to spurring action by all governments to reduce greenhouse emissions

China’s decision to halt cooperation with the US over the climate crisis has provoked alarm, with seasoned climate diplomats urging a swift resumption of talks to help stave off worsening global heating.

Beijing announced, last Friday, measures aimed at retaliating against the US for the “egregious provocation” of a visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives.

While the extent of China’s withdrawal from climate discussions is not clear, the move threatens to derail the often fragile cooperation between the two largest carbon emitters, with only a few months before the crucial UN Cop27 in Egypt. Experts say there is little hope of avoiding disastrous global heating without strong action by the US and China, which are together responsible for about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions.

The rupture in relations has occurred during a summer of climate change-fuelled disasters, with record heatwaves and wildfires sweeping the US and Europe, punishingly high temperatures scorching India and China, and ruinous flooding affecting the US, south Asia and Africa.

The US is on the brink of signing its landmark climate legislation into law, but, collectively, governments across the world are still not doing enough to avoid breaching agreed temperature goals. The goal of limiting heating to 1.5C was “on life support” with a weakening pulse, António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said last month.

“US-China relations have always been a rollercoaster and we often witness flare-ups but, while you can freeze talks, you cannot freeze climate impacts,” said Laurence Tubiana, the chief executive of the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris climate accords.

“It’s in the self-interest of China and the US to act on climate and start talking. Indeed, China recognises its own self-interest to act; it is still committed to Paris and is moving forward on domestic pledges around methane and coal phasedown.”

The US and China have accused each other of not doing enough to cut planet-heating emissions over the years. China attacked US “selfishness” when Donald Trump, as president, rolled back various environmental protections in 2017, while Joe Biden, Trump’s successor, last year claimed the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, had made a “big mistake” by not attending the Cop26 climate summit in Scotland.

However, the two powers achieved a breakthrough at the same talks in Glasgow in November, when they reached agreement on a surprise plan to work together “with urgency” on slashing emissions. Xie Zhenhua, the head of China’s delegation, said both countries must “accelerate a green and low carbon transition”.

John Kerry, the US climate envoy, acknowledged that the nations had “no shortage of differences” but that cooperation was “the only way” to get the job done. “This is about science, about physics,” he said.

This rapprochement on climate has helped foster collaboration between US and Chinese organisations, as well as providing leadership to other countries, according to Nate Hultman, the director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland and a former aide to Kerry. “The US and China working together is an important dimension of addressing climate change, it has the potential to motivate others to do more,” he said.

“The broader relationship is very complex but both countries understand this is not just a bilateral issue, there is a global dimension to this. That is what I hope will bring them back together. Hopefully this suspension is brief and they can get back to the table as soon as possible.”

Hultman said that, while high-level climate talks could be curtailed, other bilateral collaboration might continue, although details on this were scant. Regardless of the situation between the US and China, progress could still be made at the Cop27 talks in Egypt, he insisted.

“This has been challenging and at times we are going to stall out,” Hultman said. “But Cop27 won’t just crash out if the US and China don’t iron out their differences. We would have to focus on what else can be done as an international community.”

Both understand this is not just a bilateral issue, there is a global dimension