The US and China surprise with their commitment to fight the climate emergency together

By Josh Lederman -

The United States and China pledged on Wednesday to work together for the next decade to combat the climate emergency, which they announced in a rare joint statement in the final days of the United Nations summit in Scotland.

The two largest economies in the world

declared "their firm commitment to work together and with other entities to strengthen the implementation of the Paris agreement."

The United States special envoy for the climate, John Kerry, and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, were the ones who negotiated the agreement and promoted it this Wednesday in their respective press conferences.

John Kerry, US Special Envoy for Climate, Announces Bilateral Engagement with China to Combat Climate Change at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland;

on November 10, 2021.Alastair Grant / AP

The two countries said they will work together to combat deforestation and hold a bilateral meeting on levels of methane gas in the atmosphere in the middle of next year.

Without going into detail, the joint statement affirmed previous goals, such as ending funding to exploit coal fields abroad and preserving the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to

[COP26 draft calls for ending fossil fuel subsidies]

However, the commitment represented an important boost at the climate summit as it showed that the main emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, China, is still involved in the fight to tackle the crisis.

This has been China's most important pronouncement so far at the conference, in which Beijing officials have not had a prominent participation and Chinese President Xi Jinping did not appear.

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In an interview with our sister network NBC News in Glasgow, Scotland, he called Xi's absence from the summit "disappointing" but said

China did not sign the global pledge proposed by the United States to curb emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by 30% by the end of the decade.

The Asian giant also disappointed those who expected it to announce a faster reduction in its emissions.

Its goal remains for its emissions to peak in 2030, to become a carbon neutral emitter by 2060, a decade after the US target.