Can China-US Climate Diplomacy Make Progress?

China-U.S. relations are often spoken about in dire terms, with some invoking apocalyptic fears of war between two nuclear powers. But if China-U.S. tensions do bring about the end of the world, it’s far more likely to be because their growing hostility derailed cooperation on the real existential threat staring our entire planet in the face: climate change.

China and the United States are the world’s biggest economies, and not coincidentally also its two biggest emitters. China’s carbon dioxide emissions soared along with its incredible economic growth during the first 20 years of the 21st century, growing from 3,644 million metric tons in 2000 to 11,472 MMT in 2021. U.S. CO2 emissions actually fell during that period – from 6,020 MMT in 2000 to 5,010 MMT in 2021 – but the United States remains far above China in per capita emissions (14.86 tons per person for the U.S. versus 8.05 for China) and nearly doubles China in terms of historical emissions (cumulative emissions since 1750).

Given China and the United States’ prominent roles in emitting dangerous greenhouse gases – and, more positively, their roles as technology superpowers able to jumpstart the energy transition – it’s obvious to the world that climate change cannot be solved without their cooperation.

So when U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for China John Kerry touched down in Beijing on July 16, the world was watching. Kerry held meetings with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, as well as with top diplomat Wang Yi, Vice President Han Zheng, and Chinese Premier Li Qiang. While in Beijing, Kerry told his counterparts that “the world expects both nations to cooperate on climate” and thus “the United States and [China] cannot let bilateral differences stand in the way of making concrete progress on shared transnational challenges.”

Kerry’s visit from July 16-19 marked a return to form for China-U.S. climate change cooperation – no small feat given recent tensions in the overall relationship.

For a time, there was hope that climate change could remain isolated from broader frictions. After the Biden administration took office, Kerry was the first Cabinet-level official to visit China, making trips in April and September of 2021. Notably, Kerry visited China over two years before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did.

Kerry’s climate diplomacy also resulted in some of the only joint statements issued by the United States and China under the Biden administration: the Joint Statement Addressing the Climate Crisis (issued during his April 2021 trip to China) and the Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s (issued, as the name suggests, on the sidelines of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021).

The Glasgow Declaration, in particular, contained a concrete roadmap for cooperation, including cooperation on regulatory frameworks relating to greenhouse gas emissions, “green design and renewable resource utilization,” and “deployment and application of technology such as CCUS and direct air capture.” The endorsement of joint research on science and technology – once fairly common in China-U.S. relations across a variety of fields – now represents a rarity, as both sides have taken to jealously guarding technological progress in the name of self-sufficiency.

They also committed to establish a “Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s,” which the Glasgow Declaration said would “meet regularly to address the climate crisis and advance the multilateral process, focusing on enhancing concrete actions.”

The Glasgow Declaration followed a pattern established in the Obama administration, where concerted efforts to coordinate with China resulted in a bilateral agreement in time to positively advance the next U.N. climate summit. Similarly, in 2014, a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-U.S. President Barack Obama had resulted in a Joint Announcement on Climate Change, setting the stage for the Paris agreement on climate change the next year.

But after initial progress in 2021, China-U.S. climate change cooperation dried up.

In September 2021, during Kerry’s second visit to China, then-Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued a clear warning that “China-U.S. cooperation on climate change cannot be divorced from the overall situation of China-U.S. relations.” He explained using the metaphor of an oasis in the desert: “The U.S. side wants the climate change cooperation to be an ‘oasis’ of China-U.S. relations. However, if the oasis is all surrounded by deserts, then sooner or later, the ‘oasis’ will be desertified.”

Sure enough, China officially suspended “China-U.S. talks on climate change” as one of eight “countermeasures” in response to then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. As I wrote at the time, China was “unilaterally canceling engagement with the United States on issues of top priority to the Biden administration.” The obvious implication was that China viewed cooperation on climate change as political leverage, rather than as something of intrinsic value.

Kerry’s recent visit, sadly, didn’t do much to change that perception. Yes, he was permitted to visit China, but he was the third in a list of recent U.S. Cabinet officials to make the trip, suggesting Beijing places no special emphasis on climate cooperation. Moreover, Xi Jinping did not meet with Kerry, but did receive 100-year-old Henry Kissinger, who has been out of government for decades but is widely viewed as more a trusted interlocutor in Beijing.

More concerningly, there was no joint statement to mark Kerry’s trip, not even a formal confirmation that the previous forms of cooperation – like the Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s – would resume.

Instead, the U.S. readouts took a hectoring tone. In his meetings with Wang and Li, Kerry pressed China “to increase its ambition and accelerate the reduction of emissions” and “decarbonize the power sector, cut methane emissions, and reduce deforestation.”

“Secretary Kerry emphasized that enhanced action by the PRC to accelerate decarbonization, reduce methane emissions, and address deforestation is essential for the world to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” the U.S. State Department said in its summary of his meeting with Wang.

There was surprisingly little mention of China-U.S. cooperation, especially compared to some of the concrete, practical recommendations made after Kerry’s previous trips in 2021.

Meanwhile, Xi delivered a pointed message at a national conference on ecological and environmental protection that coincided with Kerry’s visit. When it comes to climate change, “China’s commitments are unswerving, but the path towards the goals as well as the manner, pace and intensity of efforts to achieve them should and must be determined by the country itself, rather than swayed by others,” Xi said.

Kerry’s and Xi’s comments captured the dynamics of China-U.S. climate talks. Although progress on climate issues and emissions reduction ultimately benefits both countries – and the world – the general perception held by both sides is that the United States values such cooperation more and is more actively pushing for breakthroughs. And that means any progress made is seen as a “win” for Washington.

Beijing is not inclined to hand the U.S. a diplomatic breakthrough at the moment; it would prefer to make its climate change commitments unilaterally or in other venues (for example, with the European Union).