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.
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