US climate envoy Kerry holds talks in China
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00:00 We know that the US wants China to participate more in these international climate funds. Janet
00:04 Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, said so herself during her visit. But Beijing has its own grievances
00:10 as well, notably US tariffs on Chinese solar panels, as well as US taxes on steel and aluminum,
00:17 which affects the Chinese heavy industries. These are issues that are unlikely to change with John
00:22 Kerry's visit. What we might see is that the world's two largest economies and the two largest
00:28 polluters come together once again and set up these important working groups to discuss
00:33 climate cooperation. China had shut down a dialogue after Nancy Pelosi's controversial
00:38 visit to Taipei. The idea now is to build upon previous progress that had been achieved,
00:43 for example, back in 2021 on the sidelines of the COP26 summit in Glasgow. China and the US
00:50 managed to sign a joint declaration and in it, Beijing notably pledged to find ways to cut
00:55 methane emissions. We haven't really seen an action plan on that yet. So John Kerry could
01:00 also be pushing for more details on China's propositions to deal with this super potent
01:06 greenhouse gas. Now, China is not alone, Yena. China and the United States together represent
01:11 45 percent of the world's CO2 emissions. Needless to say, then, that the stakes of this meeting are
01:17 obviously high. Well, China and the US both agreed in principle that they really need to
01:24 transition towards a clean energy. But where they differ is the speed. Beijing argues that it has
01:30 a developing nation status, that it still needs more time to burn cheap and dirty fossil fuels.
01:36 And indeed, the CO2 emissions per capita of China is also well below that of the US,
01:41 Australia, Canada and other countries. So Beijing has targets such as letting its carbon emissions
01:47 peak by 2030, reaching carbon neutrality by 2060. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is a little bit
01:53 more ambitious. They want to reach a net zero by 2050. But both haven't really been reaching
01:59 their targets as of late. The shock of the pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine certainly
02:05 haven't helped. In fact, last year, China quadrupled its capacity for coal plants and
02:10 the US's greenhouse gas emissions went up 1.3 percent.