News Analysis
U.S. President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, called for “real progress” before the year-end United Nations climate summit during the four-hour talks with his counterpart in China on July 17.
The meeting, however, appears to make no progress in addressing longstanding concerns about China’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions while pushing its climate agenda globally.
Monday’s meeting marked the first major climate discussion between the United States and China in nearly a year. Last August, the Chinese regime cut down communication with the United States over a series of issues, including military and climate change, after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan infuriated Beijing.
According to China’s state media, the talks between Mr. Kerry and China’s special climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, lasted “around four hours.”
“It’s imperative that China and the United States make real progress” in the four months before the 28th U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 28) in Dubai, Mr. Kerry said as delegates gathered in a conference room overlooking Beijing’s Forbidden City on Monday morning.
Mr. Kerry called on the two nations to work together to reduce methane emissions and other greenhouse gases.
He also tried to push China to reduce its reliance on coal-fired energy production. Mr. Kerry praised the “incredible job” China has been doing in building up renewable energy capacity but said it had been undercut by the construction of new coal power plants.
China agreed to phase down coal use from 2026, which means its coal consumption will continue to rise in the next two years. Last year, Chinese officials approved more new coal plants than ever in the past seven years.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to cut carbon emissions, but it won’t start until 2030. Mr. Xi vowed to make the country become “carbon-neutral” by 2060.
Prior to the meeting, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that the world should “pressure China to take far more dramatic action to reduce emissions.”
“They should not be able to hide behind any kind of claim that they are a developing nation to step up to their responsibility,” Mr. Sullivan added. “And their responsibility, under the Paris climate accord, is to take significant, substantial action to reduce emissions on a defined time frame in the near-term.”
At the 27th U.N. climate summit last November, Mr. Xie said it was the responsibility of developed countries to pay into climate funds. Developing nations like China “do not have the responsibility” to contribute to loss and damage funds to help poor nations, he said.
Leverage
Mr. Kerry landed in Beijing on July 16 for three days of talks, becoming the third U.S. official to travel to China in less than two months. With tensions continuing to rise, the Biden administration seeks to resume communication lines between Beijing and Washington.
Nevertheless, there wasn’t any major breakthrough following the trips to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Mr. Blinken said last month that China still refused to renew high-level military communications despite his repeated requests during the meetings with Mr. Xi and other top diplomats in Beijing.
During Monday’s meeting, Mr. Kerry urged the two countries to set aside diplomatic tensions to focus on the climate agenda.
“In the next three days, we hope we can begin taking some big steps that will send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of China and the United States to address a common risk, threat, challenge to all of humanity created by humans themselves,” Mr. Kerry said.
Mr. Xie also said that he hoped their talks could improve bilateral ties.
Mr. Kerry and Mr. Xie met on Sunday night for a one-on-one dinner. Mr. Kerry complimented Mr. Xie for being back at work after overcoming illness. Both referred to each other as old friends.
“Yesterday, after we met each other, I did a little calculation,” Mr. Xie said on Monday. “I counted that since the two of us have been appointed special envoys, we have met 53 times.”
Despite their warm tones, China’s hawkish state-run media Global Times, in an editorial published on July 16 after Mr. Kerry arrived in China, dampened any expectation that there might be any breakthrough in bilateral cooperation on climate issues.
“China-U.S. climate cooperation is unlikely to see a real ice-breaking outcome with Kerry’s visit alone,” the outlet wrote, before questioning if the U.S. government is “sincere about climate cooperation.”
The communist regime has been demanding the U.S. government agree to its “one-China principle,” which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, while insisting any American measures that support the self-ruled island, such as selling the Taiwanese government defense weapons, as “interfering” in its “internal affairs.”
In a separate briefing on Monday, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, warned Taiwan is the “red line” in Sino-U.S. ties when asked about a planned visit next month to the United States by Taiwan presidential frontrunner Vice President William Lai.
There is no doubt that the Biden administration wants the help of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with Mr. Kerry telling lawmakers during a hearing last week that China “is critical to our being able to solve this [climate] problem.”
For the communist regime, there are strings attached to any climate cooperation with the United States. Anders Corr, principal at the New York-based political consultancy firm Corr Analytics and an Epoch Times contributor, wrote in an op-ed published on July 14 that the CCP is using climate issues as leverage to seek U.S. concessions, drawing such conclusion based on China’s state-media reports and comments from a climate expert in China.
“The CCP is going to let the world broil unless we cough up Taiwan. That’s extortion, clear and simple,” Mr. Corr wrote. “Taiwan isn’t the only concession Beijing seeks for closing down its coal-fired power plants.”
Mr. Corr suggested that Beijing would also want the U.S. government to ease its sanctions, tariffs, and trade restrictions on China in return for its cooperation on climate change.
Ambitions
The Oil & Gas Workers Association, a Texas-based independent trade association that has been outspoken about the threats posed by China’s communist regime, took to Twitter on July 12 to suggest that there would be “no deal” on climate between China and the United States while tagging Mr. Kerry’s Twitter handle.
“China is preparing for war, not saving the planet,” the association wrote, quoting Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Mr. DeVore’s comments were published by Fox News in November last year. In his op-ed, he wrote, “The Chinese have been cloaking their preparations for war as a green energy push.”
He said China had been “laying the groundwork” to reduce its dependence on imported oil and natural gas while expanding its use of coal to generate electricity. In other words, Beijing was “rapidly increasing its coal-to-liquid capacity,” he added.
“Simply put, China’s coal-to-liquids effort allows China to weather a U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Malacca, giving the Chinese Communist Party enormous latitude to pursue military aggression against its neighbors while keeping its economy running,” he wrote.
According to a February report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and the Global Energy Monitor, China’s coal project activity accelerated in 2022, with 50 percent more construction started compared to 2021. Last year, the capacity of coal power plants that started construction in China was “six times” larger than the rest of the world combined.
While it remains to be seen if the CCP will launch a war, there is without a doubt that the regime is aiming to reshape the current rule-based international order. In February, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a report (pdf) that Beijing is using its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and other initiatives to promote a “China-led alternative” to the current world order.
The report further explained why the CCP would commit to climate issues while expanding BRI globally.
“Beijing will continue to promote the BRI while adjusting its response to public criticism and sustainability challenges by pledging deeper cooperation on clean energy, electric vehicles, and climate change,” the report says. “It will diversify project selection in an attempt to improve the initiative’s brand and minimize international criticism.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
