United Nations Backs China-US Climate Agreement

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, praised Wednesday the joint statement to work to contain climate change signed by China and the United States in the framework of the Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP26).

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Guterres said, "I applaud today's agreement between China and the United States to work together to take more ambitious climate action this decade. It is a step in the right direction."

He added that addressing and confronting the effects of climate change and the environmental crisis requires solidarity and convergence in international collaboration.

For his part, European Commission Vice-President for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, also praised the agreement and expressed on Twitter that "good news that the U.S. and China have found common ground on climate." This is a challenge that transcends politics.

Regarding the agreement, the Chinese special envoy for climate change Xie Zhenhua, expressed in the initialed joint statement that "both countries recognize that there is a gap between current efforts and the goals of the Paris Agreement, therefore, we will strengthen our work and cooperation together, taking into account our particularities, to accelerate the transition to green and low-carbon energy."

He added that his nation plans to draw up a national strategy to reduce methane emissions and intends to promote joint research with Washington in this area.

Meanwhile, his U.S. counterpart, John Kerry, remarked that "the world's two largest economies have agreed to work together in the face of the urgency and gravity of the climate crisis." A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Every step counts right now, even though we have a long journey ahead of us.

The agreement commits both nations to promote joint actions on regulatory frameworks and environmental standards by 2030; establish policies that lead to decarbonization and electrification; and deploy CO2 capture and storage technologies. 

In addition to limiting global warming to 2 degrees and ideally keeping it within the 1.5-degree thresholds during this century, ecological design and the use of renewable resources are based on a circular economy.