U.S., CHINA MAKE PACT ON CLIMATE

The United States and China have said they will fight climate change “with the seriousness and urgency that it demands” by stepping up efforts to reduce carbon emissions, a rare demonstration of cooperation amid escalating tensions over a raft of other issues.

The agreement, which included few specific commitments, was announced Saturday night, Washington time, after President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, visited China for three days of talks in which the negotiators managed not to be sidetracked by those disputes.

“It’s very important for us to try to keep those other things away, because climate is a life-or-death issue in so many different parts of the world,” Kerry said in an interview Sunday morning in Seoul, where he met with South Korean officials to discuss global warming. “What we need to do is prove we can actually get together, sit down and work on some things constructively.”

The agreement comes only days before Biden is scheduled to hold a virtual climate summit with world leaders, hoping to prod countries to do more to reduce emissions and limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Many scientists now argue that warming must be kept below that threshold to avert catastrophic disruptions to life on the planet.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is among those who have been invited to the virtual summit. While he has yet to publicly accept the invitation, the agreement with Washington appeared to make his participation more likely.

On Friday, Xi said that China remained committed to climate goals he had announced last fall, including a promise that its carbon emissions would peak before 2030. At the same time, Xi suggested that the world’s most advanced nations had a responsibility to take the lead in making deeper cuts.

In what seemed to be a retort to the United States, he warned that the climate issue should not be “a bargaining chip for geopolitics” or “an excuse for trade barriers.”

“This is undoubtedly a tough battle,” Xi said in a conference call with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, according to an account of the meeting issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“China is sure to act on its words, and its actions are sure to produce results,” he went on. “We hope that the advanced economies will set an example in momentum for emissions reductions and also lead the way in fulfilling commitments for climate funding.”