The surprise Cop26 announcement could herald a crucial era of climate cooperation between the two carbon superpowers
It could have been so much worse. At this critical juncture, talks between the world’s two carbon superpowers – together accounting for some 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions – could easily have collapsed into a blame game, and a standoff that would have seriously set back global efforts. Instead, the surprise China-US agreement announced on Wednesday night offers renewed hope for joint leadership at last. After the bruising years of the Donald Trump presidency, and the impact of Covid-19 on the negotiations themselves and those poor countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis, trust in multilateralism hangs in the balance.
The new agreement is far from perfect and doesn’t go far enough. Despite promises to cooperate on reducing methane emissions, details in the plan are patchy and need more substance. It could even risk distracting from the multilateral work needed in these crucial last moments of the UN-led Cop26 talks. But it is still important, even inspiring, to see new cooperation emerge. The US and China climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, shared warm words, the latter announcing that “there is more agreement between China and the United States than divergence.”
Sam Geall is CEO of China Dialogue and associate fellow at Chatham House
