In the negotiations at the World Climate Conference, a breath of fresh air is coming from a surprising direction: the two biggest climate sinners announce a pact - although they are often at odds with each other.
Washington - The world's two largest economies and emitters of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, are stepping up their cooperation in the fight against global warming.
"We cannot achieve our goals if we do not work together," said US climate protection officer John Kerry on Wednesday evening at the world climate conference in Glasgow.
The US and China have a number of differences.
"But with the climate, that's the only way to cope with this task."
Joint statement
A joint declaration states that in view of the climate crisis they want to use this "critical moment" to accelerate the transformation towards a climate-neutral world economy together and individually.
To this end, more ambitious climate protection measures will be taken this decade.
A joint working group is also to be set up for this purpose.
In addition, the two world powers want to jointly discuss in the first half of the coming year how they can reduce methane emissions.
To this end, the US and the EU had already forged an alliance of dozen countries at the climate conference earlier this week.
The aim is to reduce emissions of the second most important greenhouse gas by 30 percent by 2030.
Observers recently rated China's current climate protection plans as rather weak.
The gigantic empire does not even want to start reducing its greenhouse gas emissions until 2030.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the declaration by the two great powers: “The fight against the climate crisis needs international cooperation and solidarity.
And this is a step in the right direction. "
China made no concrete new commitments on climate protection in the declaration, but announced that it might improve its climate protection plan for 2030 that it had submitted to the UN.
The People's Republic came under fire because President Xi Jinping did not come to the summit of heads of state and government last week and only made a written statement.
Climate protection in cities
The official focus of COP26 today is climate protection in cities.
A statement from the British government as the host of the mammoth meeting with a good 40,000 participants is expected.
In addition, the chairman Alok Sharma wants to publish more "almost finished" texts on various issues during the night.
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For the first time, the Executive Minister for the Environment, Svenja Schulze, is expected in Glasgow around noon.
The SPD politician had stayed in Berlin since the beginning of the COP26 because of the intensive negotiations on a traffic light coalition in the federal government.
The planned end of the climate conference is on Friday, but an extension has been common in recent years.
In Glasgow, a new alliance of states is also being formed this Thursday, which aims to accelerate the phase-out of climate-damaging oil and gas production.
The alliance “Beyond Oil & Gas” was forged by Denmark and Costa Rica, whose ministers want to appear before the press at noon.
It was initially not known how many countries would participate.
The initiators stated in advance that it was unacceptable that, according to previous plans, global oil and gas production should increase by two percent annually.
dpa