The negotiations must have been going on for months, and the negotiators on both sides joined forces 30 times – for this one moment shortly before the end of the climate summit in Glasgow: China and the USA want to cooperate more closely on climate protection in the future. “We both see that the threat of climate change is existential and serious,” said China’s chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua on Wednesday evening in Glasgow. “Cooperation is the only chance for our two countries.” In addition, there is “more agreement than differences in the era of climate change”.
This is seldom the case between the two superpowers at the moment, because there is plenty of conflict around trade issues, human rights, Taiwan and Hong Kong. “We have no shortage of dissenting positions,” says John Kerry, US President Joe Biden’s climate special envoy. “But we have to work together on the climate.” There is an “imperative of cooperation”.
To a large extent, the tripartite declaration is not very specific, but the fact that it comes about is important for the success of the conference. For a long time, the US and China had paralyzed each other on climate protection – each side referred to the inaction of the other to justify its own inaction. An initial agreement between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping only paved the way for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2014 a year later.
Both sides wanted to endeavor to accelerate the departure from fossil fuels, the statement said, and to do so as quickly as possible. “We agreed to take faster steps in the 1920s,” said Xie. China will also work to reduce emissions of methane, which is particularly harmful to the climate. The USA and the EU in particular have recently joined forces to achieve this. A joint working group is also to coordinate the climate policy of both countries more closely. Both also want to present new climate plans as early as 2025.
However, the agreement also has downsides: The declaration could stand in the way of the goal of fixing global warming by a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times. Island states, many developing countries and the EU insist on 1.5 degrees. But the declaration only uses the two-degree target from the Paris climate agreement. But you want to make an effort to reach 1.5 degrees – that sounds similar in the Paris Agreement. The negotiations in Glasgow, which should officially end on Friday, are likely to put a strain on that.
EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans welcomed the agreement, but added one more sentence. “Now we have to find a global way to keep the 1.5 degrees alive,” he wrote on Twitter.