On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry argued that while there are many serious issues between the United States and China, “we have a clock that’s ticking on climate more immediately. And we have an imperative to try to move.”
Kerry stated, “There’s no way that any one country can solve this crisis, and particularly if we are large emitting nations. We are the world’s largest economy by far, we’re a $23-trillion economy, plus the nearest is China at about $17 trillion. And then you go down into single digits. So, it is imperative that China and the United States find a way to cooperate with respect to the climate crisis. Now, originally, when President Biden first talked to President Xi, they both agreed that we were going to keep the climate issue separate, because it’s not a bilateral issue. It’s a universal threat to the world and all of us have a stake in taking steps to address it. So, for a period of time, that appeared to work. They agreed that they would separate it from the many other issues. And let me just say to you, I’m not glossing over any issue whatsoever that we have with China. There are real issues, serious ones, and a whole bunch of them. But climate has — we don’t have a — we have a clock that’s ticking on climate more immediately. And we have an imperative to try to move.”
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