Sino-U.S. cooperation ends COP28 deadlock

When the negotiations at the just-concluded COP28 climate summit got stuck, China and the United States worked together, provided "some joint proposals to unlock the deadlock in the negotiations, and facilitated the success of the COP", Xie Zhenhua, China's special envoy for climate change, said on Wednesday.

Xie made the remarks in a dialogue with John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, as they jointly met the media during COP28 after a historic deal was struck following a deadlock at the conference.

The two countries also agreed that "following the requirements of the Paris Agreement, and also the suggestions made in the outcome for the first Global Stocktake, China and the U.S. will respectively reevaluate our respective long-term strategies for climate actions", he said, adding that based on it they will update the Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, in order to better implement the Paris Agreement.

Xie noted that they also agreed that the two sides would operationalize their joint working group on climate change as soon as possible, in order to make progress on energy transition, the circular economy, methane emission control, and low-carbon sustainable provinces, so that they can better implement their NDCs and promote the multilateral process.

During their meeting, Kerry first introduced the status of the collaboration in the field of climate change between the two countries.

"First of all, with a great deal of back and forth, and in the weeks leading up, in the months leading up, we agreed to take concrete mitigation actions in parallel and to establish a working group to carry out pragmatic cooperation," he said.

China and the U.S. recently released an agreement which addressed the national actions of the two countries, such as accelerating renewables and deployment to substitute for fossil fuels, as well as the elements that both considered should be included in the Global Stocktake in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Kerry added.

"We both hope and are pleased that we think our joint work not only advanced our respective national efforts, but also reflected COP in many ways," he said.

The Paris Agreement and the Global Stocktake both stressed the importance of developing and updating long-term strategies in order to reduce emissions and enhance resilience, added Kerry.

Xie then thanked his "good friend" Kerry, saying he agreed with him on his assessment of China-U.S. cooperation on climate change. According to Xie, he and Kerry with their teams spent some days together in Sunnylands, California, the U.S., in November.

Under the principle of upholding multilateralism and promoting the implementation of the Paris Agreement, they had "candid, frank, in-depth and friendly exchanges".Finally they adopted the China-U.S. Joint Sunnylands Statement for addressing the climate crisis, noted Xie.