After a tense year, the steady defrost in the US-China relationship and the expected face-to-face meeting of President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping next week in San Francisco offers tantalising hope on climate action.
As President Biden said at this year’s United Nations General Assembly, progress on some issues hinges on their common efforts and “nowhere is that more critical than the accelerating climate crisis.”
Much ink has been spilled debating whether the US and China should cooperate or compete on addressing climate change.
These debates obscure a more important question: if revived, what could US-China cooperation on climate actually achieve?
As it turns out — a lot.
On one hand, as all countries work to implement their emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement, global climate progress no longer hinges so heavily on US-China cooperation.
But a high-level US-China agreement could provide the much-needed “course correction” to keep world temperatures on track to remain below 1.5C.
And it could also set the stage for a successful outcome at the Cop28, the UN’s largest annual international climate conference taking place the first two weeks of December in Dubai.
Based on what both countries are already prioritising, there is room for significant partnership when it comes to keeping domestic emissions reductions on track, raising ambition in multilateral negotiations, and accelerating climate action in developing countries.
Methane controls
Leaders from both countries have an opportunity to show that climate cooperation between the world’s two largest emitters shouldn’t just mean searching for the lowest common denominator.
To start, China’s recent delivery on its 2021 pledge, made alongside the US, to develop a plan to control methane has helped to restore trust.
Integrating non-CO2 gases into China’s climate targets would further assuage concerns that methane leakage from coal mines and other sectors could undermine action elsewhere.
Likewise, a commitment to limit emissions from burning coal could provide assurance that new coal plants won’t compromise climate targets.
In these areas, the US could lend monitoring and mitigation expertise, including from the development of its updated Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan this year.
Hedging against a Republican administration
From China’s view, the potential for a Republican administration threatens the stability of US action and engagement.
To hedge against this, leaders on both sides could jointly endorse subnational and non-governmental cooperation.
This could pave the way for more partnerships that embed climate cooperation at multiple levels and across sectors, building on California’s recent agreement with a slew of Chinese provinces.
World Bank to initially host loss and damage fund under draft deal
US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua are slated to co-host a local climate action summit during Cop28.
This could provide further opportunities to showcase and institutionalise multi-level cooperation on a global stage.
Unlocking higher global ambition
Finally, US-China cooperation could tackle thorny issues in the UN climate negotiations and unlock greater ambition.
Early, explicit communication of US-China consensus on the structure and ambition of NDC climate plans due in 2025 could lay the foundation for global consensus and position both countries as credible actors.
So too could joint communication of expectations for the new post-2025 goal on climate finance, known as the NCQG.
Doing so before Cop28 could inject important momentum ahead of a major milestone when countries will assess progress and gaps towards global climate goals – much like back in 2015, when the two countries helped lay the groundwork for the Paris Agreement by announcing their climate targets early, and together.
US raising climate finance
Perhaps US climate finance ambition could be the necessary show of goodwill to move talks forward.
This ambition was demonstrated by recent attempts to secure additional funding from Congress, supporting international financial reform at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in early October, and an unspecified commitment to the Green Climate Fund.
For its part, China has expressed willingness to work with the US on green projects in developing countries.
Cooperation could address gaps by combining both countries’ respective strengths, such as China’s nimble construction capacity and US experience engaging with local stakeholders.
While joint projects may face hurdles, even conducting regular exchanges about shared challenges could improve investment outcomes for all sides – including, crucially, recipient countries – and create a multiplier effect.
None of this will be easy, but it is in both countries’ interests. Institutionalizing climate cooperation could weave a safety net for the US and China in light of other tensions.
New joint action could lend credence to their claims of being cooperative international players on climate – not to mention enabling substantive progress.
Kate Logan is associate director of climate at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a fellow at the institute’s Center for China Analysis.
The post The US and China’s resurgent climate cooperation is a big deal appeared first on Climate Home News.
The US and China’s resurgent climate cooperation is a big deal
Climate Change
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defences
Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform funding
While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
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