United States and China have reached an Agreement on Climate Goals

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On Wednesday, the US and China came together in a surprise announcement at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, to say they’ve reached an agreement on climate goals. The China-US Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s will see the pair work together to achieve the targets set by the Paris Agreement. The chief negotiator of China, Xie Zhenhua said both sides recognize there’s a gap between today’s climate action and the goals laid out in 2015’s Paris Agreement. He said, “When it comes to climate change, there is more agreement between China and the US than divergence”. Point to be noted that the Paris Agreement was created at COP21 six years ago. It is one of the most important climate treaties of our time with signatories promising to limit global temperature rises to less than 2 degrees Celsius, and ideally to 1.5 degrees.

Wednesday’s announcement is a key moment in its implementation, as the Paris Agreement was only possible in the first place due to the cooperation of China and the US. US Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said, “Now the two largest economies in the world have decided to work together to raise climate ambition in this decade”. Kerry said that his team has met with Chinese counterparts more than 30 times in recent months and that US President Joe Biden had a conversation with China’s president, Xi Jinping, a number of weeks ago, during which both leaders expressed their hopes that they could collaborate on fighting the climate crisis, despite their other differences. The secretary-general of the UN, António Guterres tweeted and called the China-US agreement an important step in the right direction. The two countries have reached an agreement on a number of matters.

The agreement includes nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, under the Paris framework, as well as temperature goals and financing. They will form a working group to meet regularly and discuss climate actions. They will also address clean energy, coal, methane, and deforestation under the declaration. The announcement came just days after former US President Barack Obama criticized China, along with Russia, for its dangerous absence of urgency at COP26. On a less optimistic note, the two countries, along with Germany, on Wednesday rejected to ban gas-powered cars by 2035. China also refused to join the methane pledge led by the US and the EU earlier this week. However, China has agreed separately to work with the United States on lowering methane emissions.