United States, China climate envoys meet at COP27

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, EGYPT: US climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday met with his Chinese counterpart at annual United

Nations climate talks in Egypt, in a further hint of improving relations between the world’s top two polluters a day after a meeting between their leaders.

Kerry met with China’s top climate official Xie Zhenhua in a room at the Chinese delegation’s offices in the COP27 conference zone. Neither Kerry nor Chinese officials said anything as the meeting started.

When asked earlier if he would be meeting with Xie on Tuesday, Kerry told The Associated Press that “I will meet with him sometime later,” without being more specific.

“We’re able to talk, we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed a day earlier to resume climate change talks with the US. Xi had put those contacts on hold three months earlier in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.

The G77 bloc of developing countries and China are proposing the establishment of a new ‘loss and damage’ fund to provide finance to countries hit by climate disasters, a draft text showed.