Superstar climate diplomat leaves center stage

Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, has been a regular participant at UN climate change conferences since 2011, and has talked with Xie in many meetings between his organization and the Chinese delegation.

Li, who worked with Green Peace before COP28, described Xie as a truthful man who had proved that different languages are no barrier to communication. Many countries had seen a new generation of senior climate diplomats assume their posts when the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, and later during the COVID-19 pandemic, Li said, while Xie had been one of the very few veterans still engaged in global climate negotiations till COP28.

Li said he had been quite impressed by Xie's people-oriented communication style.

"When sitting in front of him, you can always feel he is a truthful person," he said. "This is something very important, as it can close the gaps between people."

The veteran climate diplomat always presented himself first as an individual and then as a representative of an agency and the State, which helped him do his work well, Li said.

And Xie always faced up to problems, he added. Instead of depicting China as a "straight-A student" in tackling climate change, he also detailed the inadequacies in the country's work and why they had occurred.

"When you talk in this way, people think you are a truthful person and you are representing a truthful country. Why? Because everyone has challenges," Li said.

Xie communicated with the help of interpreters, he said, "but his experience showed that has posed no problems".

Overcoming the language barrier, Xie had developed very good personal relationships with many people.

Todd Stern served as the special envoy for climate change at the United States Department of State from 2009 to 2016.

In a video interview for the Obama Presidency Oral History project recorded in early 2021, Stern said: "Xie and I had become rivals to be sure, but better and better friends.

"I'd had him over to our house for dinner with my wife and kids. He took me to his hometown in China."