Together For Earth

John Kerry, President Biden's special envoy on climate change, has announced a deal between the United States and China to work together on combatting climate change.  As the top two greenhouse gas-emitting countries on the planet, the U.S. and China have recognized the need to push forward a bold climate agenda to get the ball rolling on stopping or at least slowing carbon emissions before it's too late.

The main goals, taken form the State Department's official communique on the meeting between Kerry and Chinese officials, are as follows:

• Policies, measures, and technologies to decarbonize industry and power, including through circular economy, energy storage and grid reliability, CCUS, and green hydrogen
• Increased deployment of renewable energy
• Green and climate resilient agriculture
• Energy efficient buildings
• Green, low-carbon transportation
• Cooperation on addressing emissions of methane and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases
• Cooperation on addressing emissions from international civil aviation and maritime activities
• Other near-term policies and measures, including with respect to reducing emissions from coal, oil, and gas

This is a big deal, coming as it does in advance of a two-day virtual climate summit President Biden is hosting today, Earth Day, and tomorrow, and not because of Trump's effort to stop anything from being done about climate change.  It's because the Americans and the Chinese haven't been able to agree on anything, trading insults recently at a bilateral meeting just a few weeks ago over COVID.  Instead of blaming each other for the problem of climate change (the European Union is already doing something about the problem while blaming both countries for it!), the U.S. and China are putting differences aside for the good of the planet and giving great impetus to getting some sort of an agreement to go forward at the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference, to be held this November in Glasgow.

If John Kerry sounds like he needs to get this issue under control as soon as possible, it's because he does.  The efforts to combat climate change will be ineffective after we reach the tipping point, possibly as soon as 2030.  And if there's a Republican President in 2025, it will really be too late after that.