: The Biden Administration Is Already Calling on China to Do More on Climate Change #WorldNEWS Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry wants the world to know the U. S. is humble as it rejoins

The Biden Administration Is Already Calling on China to Do More on Climate Change #WorldNEWS
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry wants the world to know the U. S. is humble as it rejoins the international conversation on climate change. In his Jan. 21 remarks to the international business community hosted by the G20 group, Kerry used the world “humility” to describe Americas reentry to climate talks five times.
But when it comes to China, humility is in short supply. Two days later, speaking at the U. S. Conference of Mayors, Kerry called China’s efforts to reduce emissions insufficient, and said that if the country doesn’t bolster its commitments, countries working to fight climate change are all going to lose credibility. ”

On Wednesday, he reiterated the call for China to do more in remarks delivered virtually to the World Economic Forum. Chinas done a lot. Im not insinuating they havent, he said. But they also are funding 70% of the coal-fired power plants around the world in the Belt and Road Initiative. So we have big challenges ahead of us here. Weve got to be honest. Later that day, Kerry and Secretary of State Antony Blinken both emphasized the U. S. would not bend on other issues it had with China in order to make a deal with Beijing on climate.
In particular, Kerry called China out for giving itself a longer timeline to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions than other nations, including the proposed timeline laid out by Joe Biden during his presidential campaign. China announced in December that it would peak its greenhouse gas emissions before 2030 and eliminate them entirely by 2060, a full ten years later than the deadline the European Union, Japan and other top-emitting nations have given themselves to eliminate their carbon footprints. “Its one of the few nations that has said something other than 2050,” Kerry told the U. S. Conference of Mayors. Needless to say, we dont want that to stand. ”
Its a bold statement considering that until a few weeks ago, the official position of the U. S. was open derision of almost any effort to tackle climate change. Its also a wake-up call to the policymakers around the world who had hoped that climate change could once again serve as an olive branch around which the U. S. and China could rebuild their troubled relationship under the Biden Administration.
The U. S. and China are the world’s largest emitters, together accounting for nearly half of global emissions and, as the world’s only superpowers, they inevitably shape how the rest of the world responds to the universal threat of climate change. Those factors put climate change policymakers on high alert for any signs of how the two work together — or dont — on climate policy.