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Climate talks after the Xi-Biden meeting in Bali
That Xi and Biden agreed to resume bilateral climate talks is a positive outcome that could motivate other countries to pick up the slack in meeting their Paris climate commitments.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and United States President Joe Biden meet on Nov. 14, 2022 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Leaders' Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
The one-on-one meeting between United States President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Bali Summit was not expected to make any policy breakthrough. However, there was a glimmer of hope that they would be able to give at least an affirmative nod for resuming the climate change talks.
This is exactly what happened in Bali, much to the relief of the climate activists and enthusiasts who were quite worried about Beijing’s decision in August to withdraw from the talks in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stopover in Taipei. In 1998, China and the US signed the Letter of Intent for Cooperation in Urban Air Quality Monitoring Projects, which proved to be the starting point of climate cooperation between the two countries. Since then, they have been engaged a marathon of dialogues on the subject matter, but with many ups and downs in the last two decades.
President Barack Obama was the one who actually took the initiative prior to the 2015 Paris climate summit to start the structured climate dialogue with China. The landmark Paris Agreement, which unanimously committed to take up measures to control and prevent global warming with a quantified objective of maintaining the limits on the global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius, was the first serious international agreement to address the simmering menace of global warming.
After the Paris Agreement, the US-China climate dialogue continued uninterrupted for two years, but it was suddenly suspended by president Donald Trump, who used to scorn the subject as a big hoax.
Due to President Biden’s personal interest, the talks were resumed in 2021 with renewed enthusiasm. However, Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan provoked Beijing to retaliate by boycotting the bilateral climate dialogue. After China’s decision to discontinue communication with the US on climate change, the situation grew quite grim, and the talks were not expected to resume any time soon.
But Biden very effectively utilized his meeting with President Xi in Bali to convince him to restart the climate talks. The resumption of communication is certainly the most positive development. The two largest economies are also the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, but also bitter rivals as China seeks to expand its influence around the world while the US tries to snub this attempt.
The problem was quite tricky on the US side, involving two consecutive presidents with entirely opposite thinking on climate change: Trump was a bitter opponent of the Paris Agreement, while Biden is an ardent fan of the Paris climate accords. Being a passionate lover of fossil fuels, Trump never hesitated to bluntly criticize the Paris accords during his election campaign.
