Global Courant
This photo, taken on May 11, 2022, shows Shivaram, a villager walking through the cracked bottom of a dried-up pond in Bandai village of Pali district on a hot summer day. – Every day, dozens of villagers, mostly women and children, wait with blue plastic jerry cans and metal pots for a special train that will bring precious water to people suffering from a heat wave in India’s desert state of Rajasthan.
Prakash Singh | Afp | Getty Images
The United States and China, as the world’s two largest economies, must work together to combat the “existential threat” of climate change, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese government officials and climate experts on Saturday.
On a visit to Beijing, Yellen said previous climate change cooperation between the US and China had enabled global breakthroughs such as the Paris Agreement in 2015, adding that both governments wanted to support emerging markets and developing countries as they strive to increase their achieve climate goals. .
“Continued cooperation between the US and China on climate finance is critical,” Yellen said in a prepared text. “As the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases and the largest investors in renewable energy, we have both a collective responsibility – and the ability – to lead the way.”
She said funding for such initiatives should be coordinated efficiently and effectively, adding that Beijing’s support for existing multilateral climate institutions such as the Green Climate Fund and Climate Investment Funds, in addition to Washington and others, could increase their impact.
China is the second largest market for climate funds after Europe, surpassing the US, as funds in China have more than doubled to $46.7 billion since 2021, according to research firm Morningstar.
But the World Bank said last year that China needs up to $17 trillion in additional investment in green infrastructure and technology in the energy and transportation sectors to meet its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2060, underscoring the need for private investment.
“It is also critical that we encourage economy-wide transitions to net-zero, which should also involve the private sector,” Yellen said, echoing that call, adding that it was imperative for climate-focused investments to be “interoperable” with both the American and Chinese economic systems.
Yellen said she looks forward to recommendations from working groups at upcoming meetings of the Group of 20 finance ministers in India, including the Sustainable Finance Working Group, co-chaired by the United States and China.
That group had developed a sustainable finance roadmap in recent years, held workshops on carbon pricing and non-pricing policy levers, developed a framework for transition finance and made a series of recommendations on climate finance, she said.
“This is a good example of what our bilateral cooperation can achieve – and we should build on that in multilateral fora,” she said.
