China must cut emissions to avoid climate ‘chaos’, warns US envoy Kerry

China must cut emissions this decade if the planet is to avoid climate “chaos”, warned US climate envoy John Kerry, as he issued a stark assessment that the world was falling short on its climate pledges.

In a policy speech at Kew Gardens in London on Tuesday, Kerry singled out China and said it would be “impossible” for the world to limit global warming to 1.5C unless the world’s biggest emitter changed its targets.

“There is simply no alternative, because without sufficient reduction by China, the goal of 1.5 degrees is essentially impossible,” said Kerry.

Co-operation between the US and China on climate was “the only way to break free from the world’s current mutual suicide pact”, he added.

Speaking ahead of the G20 environment ministers meeting in Italy on Thursday, Kerry said all major economies needed to start reducing emissions by 2030. He urged other G20 countries to aim to limit global warming to 1.5C, a target some have resisted.

China, which accounts for 28 per cent of annual global emissions, has pledged to peak emissions before 2030, without specifying when they might start to decline, or by how much. The US is the world’s biggest cumulative emitter.

Kerry said China’s building of coal power plants was “troubling”. He pointed out that if Beijing did not peak emissions until 2030, then the rest of the world would have to reach zero emission by 2040, a goal that he said was “impossible”.

Addressing an audience gathered in a sweltering conservatory during a London heatwave, Kerry joked: “Although we came here to talk about the greenhouse effect, we did not mean to put you in a greenhouse.”

With US-China relations at a low, co-operation on climate issues is one of the few areas where the two broadly align, making Kerry’s pointed remarks unusual.

As freak weather events bring devastation to rich and poor countries alike — and with floods in Germany claiming hundreds of lives — the effects of climate change was already being felt.

“We’re already seeing dramatic consequences with 1.2 degrees of warming,” Kerry said. “To contemplate doubling that is to invite catastrophe.”

The former US secretary of state also called for a “wartime mobilisation” of resources to fight the crisis, saying it was “a massive opportunity to rebuild our economies in the aftermath of a historic pandemic”.

The US pulled out of the Paris climate accord under President Donald Trump but rejoined earlier this year after his successor Joe Biden took office.

Ahead of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow in November, the US has come under pressure to increase its contributions to climate finance, to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change.

The Biden administration has also struggled to get its climate policies through US Congress, leaving it unclear how America will be able to meet its target of cutting emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030.

One issue that could further divide the US and China is the carbon border tax, a policy that is gaining increasing traction among Senate Democrats in Washington.

After the EU published its proposal for a carbon border adjustment mechanism last week — which would impose a levy on imports of steel, cement and fertiliser from countries without carbon pricing — the US is considering whether to follow suit.

“We are not saying that every country must, will, or can do the same thing,” said Kerry. “But every country can do enough.”

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