The United States and China pledge to work together to reduce their emissions this decade

As COP 26 moves toward its final phase, new and ambitious agreements are firmly off the worktables. China and the United States issued a joint statement pledging to accelerate the fight against climate change over the next decade.

John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said in Glasgow.

The two superpowers published a declaration in which they pledged to “strengthen climate action in 2020 (…) to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement”, to limit the rise in temperatures at the end of the century by less than two degrees. Chinese negotiator Xie Zhenhua announced at a press conference, and tried not to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The declaration nullified the final stage of the negotiations, firstly because it adds to the efforts of China, which has so far remained out of the limelight at COP26, and secondly because it sets the goal of accelerating decarbonization in the current decade, in the short term. . , as a way to get rid of carbon dioxide in the middle of the century.

The announcement, which came by surprise and won praise from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and European Commission Vice-President for the Green Charter, Frans Timmermans, was known on the same day the British Presidency of COP 26 presented its draft new agreement to work through Friday.

Previously, the UK Prime Minister, Boris Jones, returned to the Glasgow conference to show his support for the extension of the final agreement to the summit negotiated by nearly 200 countries to curb climate change.

Various sources involved in the negotiations told Efe news agency that this text, which urges countries to make renewable commitments by 2030 in 2022, leaves room for optimism in the face of the final agreement developing the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The presidential proposal also acknowledges that achieving this goal “requires rapid, deep and sustainable reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” and mentions the need to phase out coal and fossil fuel subsidies.

The text has also been evaluated as somewhat positive by NGOs, who criticize, however, that it does not explicitly refer to oil and gas, and suggest that Saudi Arabia has blocked a more ambitious wording.