US climate envoy John Kerry to visit China next week
John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate issues, will visit China from July 16-19, China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Wednesday, the latest senior American official to travel to Beijing in recent weeks. The ministry said the two countries will have an in-depth exchange of views on working together to address climate change. Kerry's trip follows a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month and will come a week after the departure of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Given the scale of their economies, cooperation between China and the US is considered vital to international efforts to avert the worst impacts of climate change. While in Beijing, Yellen stressed that both countries need to work closely together on the issue. Kerry said in May that China had invited him to visit "in the near term" for talks on averting a global climate crisis. Climate experts have said they do not expect Kerry's trip to add much momentum to climate negotiations, given ongoing political tensions between the two sides, but there are potential areas of cooperation on issues like the abatement of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. "First and foremost, it's just very important that it is happening," said Joanna Lewis, an expert on Chinese climate policies at Georgetown University. "I think it is important that some sort of positive agenda comes out of this meeting, even if it is simply an agreement to continue to meet," she said during a webinar on US-China climate cooperation on Tuesday. (Reuters/Xinhua)