It is “critical” for Washington and Beijing to keep working together on climate finance, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said yesterday, urging deeper cooperation in addressing the “existential threat” of global warming.
Yellen is on a four-day trip to Beijing as the US seeks to cool tensions and stress areas of collaboration between the world’s two largest economies.
“As the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases and the largest investors in renewable energy, we have both a joint responsibility — and ability — to lead the way,” Yellen told a roundtable of experts in China, underlining a key area of cooperation despite tense bilateral relations. “Climate change is at the top of the list of global challenges, and the United States and China must work together to address this existential threat.”
Photo: Reuters
Saying that “climate finance should be targeted efficiently and effectively,” she pressed China to support existing multilateral institutions such as the Green Climate Fund, while urging for the inclusion of the private sector in transitioning toward net zero emissions.
“Both our economies seek to support partners in emerging markets and developing countries as they strive to meet their climate goals, and I believe continued US-China cooperation on climate finance is critical,” she said.
China last year briefly said that it was suspending talks on the climate after Nancy Pelosi, then-speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan.
However, there are signs that talks could restart soon, with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry due to travel to China to discuss cooperation on climate change, a US official said on Friday.
Besides meeting people involved in climate finance, Yellen is also expected to speak with economists and meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), a key official in China’s economic affairs.
It is during these subsequent meetings that Yellen was expected to be able to drill down into more specific issues, ranging from the macroeconomy to trade and technology exports, said Lyu Xiang (呂祥), a Sino-US relations expert at the Beijing-headquartered Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
However, a key question is whether “big ticket items that are in the category of global challenges,” such as debt distress and climate cooperation, get bumped to the top of the agenda, said Lindsay Gorman, senior fellow for emerging technologies at the Washington-based German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Yellen’s talks follow meetings with US businesspeople, who have expressed a host of concerns ranging from level playing fields with Chinese firms to reduced people-to-people exchanges and an uncertain business climate in the face of a national security crackdown.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
RSS