Chinese, US climate envoys to hold talks in Shanghai

China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua will meet with his US counterpart John Kerry in Shanghai this week and exchange views on a key United Nations climate conference, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

Kerry will visit China from April 14 to 17 at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said Zhao Lijian, a spokesman at the foreign ministry, when asked at a regular media briefing who proposed the face-to-face meeting.

The two will exchange views on China-US climate cooperation and COP 26, said Zhao.

COP 26, as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference is also known, will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

Kerry, who US President Joe Biden selected to represent the United States in international climate talks, will seek to find common ground on climate change with Xie, whom he has been acquainted with for years.

Kerry will travel to Shanghai and Seoul from Wednesday till Saturday, the US State Department said in a statement on Tuesday. The trip marks the highest-level travel to China known so far for officials of the Biden administration.

Kerry’s visit comes ahead of a high-profile climate change summit initiated by Washington. The White House said in a statement last month that Biden had invited 40 world leaders to attend a virtual summit on climate change on April 22 and 23. Chinese and Russian leaders are invited to the summit.

China has pledged to have carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

Biden reversed his predecessor Donald Trump’s climate policy on his first day in office by signing an executive order returning the United States to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

The US is expected to announce “an ambitious 2030 emissions target as its new Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement” by the time of the summit next week, the White House statement said.

Senior Chinese and US officials met for a high-level strategic dialogue in the Alaskan city of Anchorage from March 18 to 19. The two sides agreed to establish a joint working group on climate change.