#John Kerry ‘hopes’ China will collaborate with US on climate change

John Kerry is holding out hope that China will cooperate with US efforts to grapple with climate change — despite contentious relations between the two nations.

“Our hope is that we’re going to be able to deal with yes, China,” Kerry, the Biden administration’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, told reporters in Dubai on Saturday.

“President Biden has made it clear and I’ve made it clear,” he said. “None of the other issues we have with China — and there are issues — is held hostage to or is engaged in a trade for what we need to do on climate.”

Biden will invite President Xi Jinping of China to his virtual climate summit later this month, administration officials said this week, even as disputes over trade, China’s suppression of its Uighur minority, the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, and other flash points continue to fester.

China has pledged to make itself carbon-neutral by 2060. But a global data survey released last month found that it has increased its coal-fired electricity generation over the last five years, now accounting for 53 percent of the global total.