Biden’s Climate Czar John Podesta to Visit China for Talks

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Sep 4, 2024 - 10:05 Updated: Sep 3, 2024 - 23:20
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Biden’s Climate Czar John Podesta to Visit China for Talks

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Podesta’s upcoming trip comes less than three months ahead of the United Nations COP29 climate summit.

President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, John Podesta, will travel to Beijing and meet with his Chinese counterpart this week, China’s environment ministry announced Tuesday.

During the trip from Sept. 4 to Sept. 6, Podesta will meet with Liu Zhenmin, China’s new climate envoy, for the second round of formal talks as part of a U.S.–China climate working group, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in a statement.

Liu and Podesta will discuss “practical cooperation,” “domestic climate policy and actions,” and the “multilateral process of climate change,” the ministry added.

The United States hadn’t issued a statement on the details of Podesta’s trip at the time of publication.

When national security adviser Jake Sullivan visited Beijing in August, he “underscored the importance of concrete steps to tackle the climate crisis” during a meeting with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, according to the White House. Both sides welcomed further discussion during Podesta’s “upcoming travel to China,” it added.

Podesta’s trip comes less than three months ahead of the United Nations COP29 climate summit, which will be held in Azerbaijan from Nov. 11 to Nov. 22.

China, the world’s top carbon emitter, still maintains its lead in constructing new coal-fired plants in the first half of this year despite a slower pace in approving new plants. According to a recent study by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor, China began constructing 41 gigawatts (GW) of coal plants from January to June, nearly equivalent to the total capacity built in 2022, and accounts for over 90 percent of new global construction activities involving coal.

The communist regime’s leader, Xi Jinping, pledged to cut carbon emissions, but it won’t start until 2030. Xi vowed to make the country “carbon-neutral” by 2060.

Meanwhile, Biden pledged to halve U.S. emissions by the end of the decade and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Podesta became the White House’s senior adviser for international climate policy this spring after Biden’s special climate envoy, John Kerry, announced that he would step down to join Biden’s reelection campaign.

The Chinese regime, meanwhile, named Liu, a former vice minister of foreign affairs, as Beijing’s new special envoy for climate change in January, replacing Xie Zhenhua. According to China’s climate ministry, Xie, 74, stepped down from his role due to health reasons.

In May, the two new climate envoys had their first in-person meetings in Washington. Following the bilateral negotiations, the State Department said the two sides will discuss methane and non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases at this year’s COP29 U.N. climate negotiations.
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