BEIJING (AP) 鈥 China and the U.S. have pledged to accelerate their efforts to address climate change ahead of a major U.N. meeting on the issue, making a commitment to take steps to reduce emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide.
The joint announcement came on the eve of between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping that is aimed at stabilizing the rocky U.S.-China relationship.
Cooperation between the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases is considered vital to the success of the It wasn't clear earlier this year whether the two governments would cooperate, given a sharp deterioration in ties over other issues including technology, Taiwan and Russia's war in Ukraine.
Both countries 鈥渁re aware of the important role they play鈥 and 鈥渨ill work together ... to rise up to one of the greatest challenges of our time,鈥 they said in a statement released Wednesday in Beijing and Tuesday evening in Washington.
They reiterated a pledge made by of which both are members, to pursue efforts to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030.
The two countries agreed to restart talks on energy policies and launch a working group on enhancing climate action in what they called 鈥渢he critical decade of the 2020s.鈥 Experts say the world needs to act now to have any chance of achieving the agreed-upon goal of limiting the average increase in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).
A climate expert described the agreement by both countries to include methane in their next climate action plans as 鈥渁 major step."
鈥淢ethane has been notably absent from China鈥檚 previous commitment鈥 under the 2015 climate treaty known as the Paris Agreement, said David Waskow, the international climate director at the World Resources Institute. He noted that China is the world鈥檚 largest emitter of methane and that 鈥渟erious actions to curb this gas is essential for slowing global warming in the near-term.鈥
The Chinese government issued an action plan last week to control methane emissions, including the development of an accounting and reporting system for emissions. Major emitters include coal mines, oil and gas fields, farms, landfills and sewage treatment plants.
The U.S. and China also said that they and the United Arab Emirates would host a meeting on methane and other greenhouse gases during the upcoming U.N. talks in Dubai.
Waskow expressed disappointment that the joint statement didn't pledge to phase out fossil fuels. That wasn't a surprise 鈥 even as China has rapidly expanded in wind and solar power, it has encouraged the construction of coal power plants, which it sees as a more reliable source of power for periods of peak demand.
The government announced last week that it would begin making 鈥渃apacity payments鈥 next year to coal power plant operators to keep them open and available for use, even as revenues fall as their electricity production is increasingly replaced by renewable energy.
The U.S.-China joint statement welcomed climate cooperation between states, provinces and cities and said the two countries would hold a high-level event on such cooperation in the first half of 2024.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, made last month to promote joint climate efforts in several cities and provinces.
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Associated Press researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.
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