Handshake sparks climate hope, but divides remain

SHARM EL-SHEIKH — A handshake in lush Bali is being felt at climate talks thousands of miles away in the Egyptian desert, where lack of progress had a top United Nations official worried.

After more than a week of so far fruitless climate talks, negotiators were grasping for something themselves: Hope. It came in the form of a cordial greeting between President Biden and China's President Xi Jinping, who met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Indonesia. Tensions between the world's two biggest polluters — whose cooperation is essential for any climate deal to work — have cast a shadow over the annual U.N. climate gathering, known as COP27. The Biden-Xi meeting could unfreeze negotiations between the U.S. and China on climate, which Beijing paused in August to protest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

At Monday's meeting, Biden and Xi agreed to “empower key senior officials” on areas of potential cooperation, including tackling climate change — though it was not immediately clear whether that meant formal talks would resume. The two nations' top climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, have a long and friendly working relationship that was put on hold by the summer tensions.

Li Shuo, a China expert at Greenpeace, said the news from Bali showed Beijing and Washington had found an “offramp” to avoid geopolitics from polluting climate engagement.

“This will help calm down tension at COP27,” he said. “Both sides can talk to each other, now they also need to lead.”

Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian official chairing the talks, acknowledged that negotiators will need help from ministers now flying to Sharm el-Sheikh in order to get a deal over the line.

Aside from haggling once again over the 1.5-degree target, delegates remained divided on calls for wealthy nations whose industrialization contributed most to global warming to provide more help for poor countries who've contributed little to global emissions.