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 "China and the United States will work together ... to collaborate
through enhanced policy dialogue, including the sharing of
information regarding their respective post-2020 plans to limit
greenhouse gas emissions," according to a U.S.-China joint statement
issued at the end of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's whirlwind
Beijing visit.
The two sides "commit to devote significant effort and resources to
secure concrete results" by the Sixth U.S.-China Strategic and
Economic Dialogue later this year, the statement added.
"Both sides reaffirm their commitment to contribute significantly to
successful 2015 global efforts to meet this challenge," the
statement said.
International talks to try to agree on a successor to the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol, the first and only international agreement to tackle
climate change, are due to be held in Paris next year. The United
States never ratified the Kyoto deal.
A new global pact might include pledges on curbing greenhouse gas
emissions and measures to enable the poorest nations to adapt better
to climate change.
Kerry welcomed Chinese cooperation.
"This is a unique, cooperative effort between China and the United
States and we have hopes that it will help to set an example for
global leadership and global seriousness on the issue of next year's
climate negotiation," Kerry told reporters before departing for
Jakarta.
"China and the United States will put an extra effort into
exchanging information and discussing policies that will help both
of us to be able to develop and lead on the standards that need to
be announced next year for the global climate change agreement,"
Kerry said.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a report last
September they were more convinced than ever that humans are the
main culprits for global warming, and predicted the impact from
greenhouse gas emissions could linger for centuries.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the study was a call for
governments, many of which have been focused on spurring weak
economies rather than fighting climate change, to work to reach a
planned U.N. accord in 2015 to combat global warming.
Ban is seeking to re-energize the global climate change debate and
boost the U.N.'s role. He has appointed former New York city mayor
Michel Bloomberg, former Ghana president John Kufuor and former
Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg as special envoys on
climate change.
(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; writing by Benjamin Kang Lim;
editing
by Jeremy Laurence)
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