The White House has indicated that Mr. Bid more ambitious plans to reduce domestic emissions will announce after four years in which its predecessor, Donald J. Trump, despised the issue.
“We have seen commitments before where everyone falls short,” he said. Kerry said. “I mean honestly, we all fall short. The whole world is falling short now. This is not a finger-pointing exercise of one nation alone. ‘
Mr. Kerry met for three days in Shanghai with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, in talks that took place late at night. Mr. Kerry said they remain focused on climate change and that they have not touched on increasingly troubling disputes over issues such as China’s political repression in Hong Kong and its threats to Taiwan.
On Friday, even as the two delegates met, the State Department sharply criticized prison sentences imposed in Hong Kong on leading pro-democracy leaders, including Jimmy Lai, a 72-year-old newspaper force. On the same day, China warned the United States and Japan against “collusion” when Mr. Biden met with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in the White House, with China’s rising ambitions one of the key issues on the table.
Chinese officials and the state news media took note of Mr. Kerry’s visit, but it played out remarkably and rather on mr. Xi’s meetings focused. But in the joint statement with the United States, the Chinese government promised to do more on climate, albeit without specific steps.
The statement said both countries would develop ‘long-term strategies’ to achieve carbon neutrality – the point when a country does not emit more carbon than it emits from the atmosphere – ahead of the next international climate conference in Glasgow in November.
In a joint statement after the White House meetings between Mr. Biden and mr. Suga, the United States and Japan have said they intend to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 by promoting renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and storage, and by innovating in capturing and recovering carbon from the atmosphere.