San Francisco (USA).- The United States and China have committed to increasing cooperation in the fight against the climate crisis and in reducing greenhouse gases, an announcement that comes just hours before the expected meeting between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
In a joint statement, the two powers recognize that they play an “important role” in the global response to the climate crisis and commit to collaborating to “confront one of the greatest challenges of our time for the present and future generations of humanity.” .
In addition, they have announced the creation of a working group to reach concrete commitments in what they call the “critical decade” of the 2020s.
Likewise, they have reiterated their commitment to a declaration by the G20, of which China and the US are members, to triple the level of renewable energy production worldwide by 2030 and accelerate the implementation of this type of technologies in their respective economies. in the next decade.
The announcement by China and the US, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, already gives a positive tone to the face-to-face meeting between Biden and Xi this Wednesday, one day before the start of the summit in San Francisco. leaders of the 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC), which will conclude on Friday.
In addition, it comes ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, which will be held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12.
Climate change has been an area where Beijing and Washington have found points of collaboration in recent years. The collaboration between Xi and then-US President Barack Obama (2009-2017) allowed the Paris Agreement to be signed in 2016.
Obama’s successor, Donald Trump (2017-2021), pulled the US out of that agreement in 2017, but Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, put the North American power back into that framework of collaboration that seeks to limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (with the limit at 2 °C) above pre-industrial levels.
