Discussions about combating climate change between China and the US, have attracted worldwide attention, as global warming urgently needs solutions. However, this cooperation is often affected by geopolitics and bilateral relations. How did this cooperation develop and what are its prospects of making progress? Our reporter Yang Shanshan takes a look.
China and the US began climate change talks in the 1990s, when global warming raised worldwide awareness. The engagement then extended to multi-level cooperation, and finally became a bright spot in China-US relations under the Obama administration.
ZHAO XINGSHU, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences "There are several reasons behind, at that time, the international society requiring the big powers including the US and China to reach consensus on climate change. China-US relations started to experience frictions in other areas, but put climate change talk as a core agenda item. On the level of domestic politics, Obama supported climate change action and China also realized that it should develop clean energy as its core strategy."
The cooperation reached its climax when the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, but then quickly stalled when President Obama was replaced by President Trump, a climate change sceptic who launched a trade war with China. The US under the Biden administration has since rejoined the Paris agreement. However, China-US climate change talk has seen little progress amid worsening tensions over trade, Taiwan and a host of security issues. The talk finally restarted when President Xi and President Biden met in Bali last November and then issued a joint statement at COP27. Experts say there could be more cooperation between China and the US on climate change.
LIU WEIDONG, Senior Fellow, Institute of American Studies, CASS "Climate change talk, as one of the four key objectives for the Biden administration will definitely become an important agenda, and this cooperation can also extend to other non-conventional security topics including public health, drug control, aid to developing countries, and infrastructure cooperation. In conventional security areas, I think Blinken also hopes they could reach progress on setting protective railings at some sensitive areas with China to ensure competition between China and the US will not go out of control."
ZHAO XINGSHU, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences "I think now China and the US are ready to continue cooperation on climate change. There are four areas they can explore, including climate ambitions, a climate-compensation fund for poorer countries, the cut on non-carbon dioxide emissions, and commitments on helping developing countries to achieve climate change transformation."
YANG SHANSHAN, Beijing "As the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases and the world's two largest economies, cooperation between China and the US, if continued, may offer realistic progress on climate change, world peace and many other international problems. Yang Shanshan, CGTN."