Washington and Beijing need more time to “break new ground” in their shared mission to combat global warming, US climate envoy John Kerry said after days of talks in Beijing ended without sweeping new commitments, reports Bloomberg.
“We got a long way with it,” and “we just ran out of administrative time and capacity to chase it down,” Kerry said in an interview Wednesday night. “But we’re in the chase.”
The US and China committed to “work intensively in the weeks ahead,” with talks proceeding on an “accelerated” schedule ahead of a critical UN climate summit starting this November in Dubai, Kerry said. China agreed with the US that countries should strive to limit warming to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels—a critical tipping point—and “that we have to be reducing coal faster,” he added.