BEIJING (Reuters) – China and the United States still have “some differences” on issues such as climate finance but have made progress in narrowing them during talks this week, U.S. climate envoy John Podesta said in Beijing on Friday.
“Notwithstanding some friction in our bilateral relationship, we can find places to collaborate for the good of our people and of our climate,” Podesta told reporters after meetings with his Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenmin and the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi.
Climate cooperation between the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases has helped build consensus for global pacts such as the 2015 Paris Agreement.
But experts said little was expected from this week’s round of talks, especially amid uncertainties about the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
As president, Donald Trump ended climate dialogue with China in 2017 and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, and is expected to do so again if he is re-elected this year.
During their meeting on Friday, Chinese foreign minister Wang told Podesta that he “hoped that the U.S. side would maintain policy stability”, according to a summary of the meeting issued by China late on Friday.
Podesta said the two sides had “excellent discussions” on the upcoming COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan in November, where agreement on a major new fund to help developing countries will be a top priority.
The U.S. is seeking to broaden the fund’s contributor base, but China and other large developing countries are concerned that such a move will “dilute” the obligations of rich nations.
Podesta said the two countries also discussed their preparations to submit ambitious 2035 climate targets to the United Nations ahead of the deadline early next year. The U.S. is pressing China to pledge substantial cuts in CO2 emissions.
The two sides are also planning to hold a bilateral summit on abating non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as methane, Podesta said.
“They get less attention but they’re fully half of what’s causing global warming,” he said.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom and David Stanway in Singapore; editing by Alison Williams, Mark Heinrich and Alex Richardson)
