China and the United States agreed on Tuesday to cooperate on addressing climate change, as Premier Li Qiang and top diplomat Wang Yi reached a consensus with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry over the matter in separate meetings, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
Both Li and Wang called for bringing the strained bilateral relationship "back to the track of sound development," as Beijing and Washington accelerate talks with an eye to holding a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden later this year, it said.
The Chinese premier stressed the need for the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters to "strengthen coordination, build consensus, and take urgent action" in order to jointly deal with climate change, according to the ministry.
Kerry expressed Washington's willingness to work with China in promoting the success of a U.N. climate conference in Dubai that will be held in November and December, the ministry added.
The U.S. envoy noted the urgent need for China to decarbonize the power sector, cut emissions of heat-trapping methane gas and reduce deforestation. He also underscored the importance of Beijing taking additional steps to enhance its emissions-cut target to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, the State Department said.
In his talks with Wang, the former U.S. secretary of state delivered a message from Biden, telling the Chinese top diplomat how much the U.S. president "values his relationship" with Xi, according to Reuters.
The former Chinese foreign minister referred to Kerry as "my old friend," saying that they had "worked together to solve a series of problems between both sides," the news agency said.
The climate envoy is the third senior U.S. official to visit China in recent weeks, following Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
His trip marked the resumption of bilateral talks on climate change after their suspension due to a visit to Taiwan last August by then U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which triggered a strong reaction from Beijing. Kerry held talks on Monday with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua.
Wang met with Blinken in Indonesia last week, with the two sides agreeing to maintain open channels of communication. Beijing and Washington have also been arranging a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, according to Chinese state-run media.
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