China and US jointly intensify climate action

China and the United States will intensify technical and policy exchanges on realizing their respective goals on energy transitions, and promote bilateral cooperation and capacity building on methane emissions control, according to a media release from China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

The release was made public on Saturday following a meeting of the two countries' working group on enhancing climate action in the 2020s, which is co-led by, John Podesta, US' senior advisor to the president for international climate policy and China's Special Envoy for Climate Change Liu Zhenmin from Wednesday to Thursday.

The in-depth discussions of the two sides recalled the San Francisco summit between presidents of the two countries in November last year, and focused on areas identified in the Sunnylands Statement, including energy transition, methane and other non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases, circular economy and resource efficiency, deforestation, and low-carbon and sustainable provinces/states and cities, the release said.

The Sunnylands statement was released after Xie Zhenhua, China's former special envoy for climate change, met his US counterpart John Kerry at Sunnylands, California, from Nov 4 to 7.

At the meeting, the working groups of the two countries also exchanged views over cooperating on multilateral issues related to promoting a successful COP29 United Nations climate change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan in November this year, the release added.

"They exchanged experiences and challenges with respect to their respective climate policies and actions, with a view to responding meaningfully to the climate crisis and beyond," it continued.

Recalling the US' intent to achieve 100 percent clean power by 2035, and the Chinese intent to phase down coal consumption during the 15th Five Year Plan period (2021-25) and make best efforts to accelerate this work, including accelerating renewables deployment, the two countries intend to intensify technical and policy exchanges on realizing their respective goals, it stated.

The two sides plan to host a second Methane and Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases Summit at COP29, it continued.

The first Summit was held in COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates late last year.

The release said the two sides are committed to promoting bilateral cooperation and conducting capacity building on deploying abatement technologies, as well as developing and/or improving respective measurement, reporting and verification systems and standards that aim to achieve significant methane emission controls and reductions in the 2020s.

Noting with interest the Methane Alert and Response System of the United Nations Environment Programm's International Methane Emissions Observatory, the release said they will also engage in technical cooperation and capacity-building for measurement and abatement solutions of other non-CO2 greenhouse gases, including industrial nitrous oxide as well as tropospheric ozone precursors.

The two sides recognize the importance of developing a circular economy and resource efficiencies in addressing the climate crisis. And they expect to conduct further technical exchanges on circular economy, including food loss and waste reduction, textiles, and recycling standards, it said.

Both sides look forward to the US-China High-Level Event on Subnational Climate Action, to be held May 29 to 30, in Berkeley, California, it said.