Nearly 200 countries are set to gather in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh for another round of global climate talks, but diplomatic tensions between the two biggest sources of climate-warming greenhouse gases have threatened to overshadow the meeting, known as COP27. Agreements and joint declarations by Beijing and Washington helped reach the landmark Paris agreement in 2015, but China suspended all bilateral talks in August after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. a self-governing island claimed by China. “China and the United States have in the past developed good cooperation in the area of climate change, working together to achieve and bring the Paris Agreement into force,” a State Department spokesman said in a statement late Thursday. “At the same time, China-US climate cooperation cannot be separated from the broader climate of bilateral relations,” the spokesman added, noting that Pelosi’s “serious violation of Chinese sovereignty” in Taiwan left China with no other choice. from suspending the talks. . “The United States side must take responsibility for this.” China has not suspended cooperation with other countries and will continue to support the multilateral climate negotiation process, the spokesman said, adding that China is “willing to communicate and coordinate with all parties” to ensure that COP27 was successful. Expectations ahead of COP27 were already low amid global worries about energy supplies sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the worsening China-US relationship has driven those expectations even lower, experts said. “US-China cooperation on climate commitments is something that has really helped in the past,” said Frank Jotzo, director of the Center for Climate and Energy Policy at the Australian National University. “It’s just not there anymore, and there’s not really much prospect of it coming back,” he said at a Thursday briefing. (Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Kim Coghill)
