By Daniel Itai
China and the United States of America (USA), the world’s largest carbon emitters, have come to an agreement on tackling climate change.
In a discussion on the global effects of climate change on Tuesday in Beijing, China, Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Wang Yi, and US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, expressed the urgent need to avert a harrowing future.
“The climate crisis demands that the world’s two largest economies work together to limit the Earth’s warming. We must take urgent action on a number of fronts, especially the challenges of coal and methane pollution,” said Kerry.
Kerry emphasized the critical importance of China increasing its ambition and accelerating the reduction of emissions.
He stressed that the world expects both nations to cooperate on climate issues and reaffirmed that the US and China cannot let bilateral differences stand in the way of making concrete progress on shared transnational challenges.
Moreover, Kerry highlighted that enhanced action by China to accelerate decarbonization, reduce methane emissions, and address deforestation is essential for the world to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Furthermore, Yi stated that there is great potential for China-US cooperation in responding to climate change, but he also noted that such cooperation requires understanding and support from people in both countries and favorable circumstances provided by sound bilateral relations.
“We should work together to remove interferences and bring bilateral ties back to sound development,” said Yi.
