Areas: United States Climate Envoy John Kerry Visits Heatwave-Battered China For Climate Talks in Beijing
John Kerry won the former Democratic Party presidential-nomination for the 2004 United States election against Republican-winner George W. Bush. He was also the former United States Secretary of State under United States President Barrack Obama from 2013–2017. Now, he’s been given a role under the Biden Administration as a special climate envoy.
As anyone following United States domestic politics would concur, the role has been doomed to fail from the beginning. Even the title “special” along with the name “climate envoy” smacks with climate change notions that have devolved since the Trump Administration pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
This story is not just about US domestic politics, however.
It’s more about looking ahead at the US-China relationship, as John Kerry’s latest trip to Beijing this week signifies what could be one of the only tailwinds facing ruptured ties between the two world’s largest economies.
Kerry went to Beijing on 16 July 2023 as the special climate envoy during a heatwave in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This trip has been seen as an indication of the United States’ efforts to restart talks with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the future of climate change.
In report by CNN World, Greenpeace China senior global policy adviser Li Shuo told reporters: “If anything, this is the situation that should most bring China and the US back on the same page.”
This event reveals a very strange mix of intense climate change notions and geopolitical trends, which is why I’m not hopeful about the outcomes at present. But with a volatile world beset by countless effects from the global Covid-19 pandemic, I don’t think the two sides have anything to lose right now.
The problem is about the future.
Can the US special climate envoy agree to a future negotiation with CCP counterparts in Beijing?
I ask this question in response to BBC’s question — “Can US and China set aside rivalry for climate action?”
To answer that question, I think it’s plausible to talk about whether or not the United States and China are likely to accept having negotiations in the future at all.
The BBC article points this out too — “While their meeting is not widely expected to yield any concrete decisions, it will be seen as a conversation starter.”
But this BBC article points out another key fact about this meeting over climate talks: the United States and China are the world’s two largest carbon emitters and thus the world’s two largest investors in renewables energies.
I actually never understood it this way. I just knew this trend to be about the United States and China getting into the massive business opportunities being presented by emerging markets. Facts work in mysterious ways!
In my digging for this story I found an even more interesting set of facts about Kerry’s trip to Beijing. In a nicely formatted multimedia piece by PBS News Hour, a writer from the Associated Press (AP) Ellen Knickmeyer spelled out the narrative on US House Republicans taking John Kerry to task — and that’s just putting it nicely! — over the meeting with CCP counterparts to discuss climate change.
It should not be a surprise to most people that discussing climate change in the United States is already an extremely conflictive topic on domestic politics — and society. And if anything, Kerry’s trip to Beijing illustrates how much the issues over climate change will impact geopolitical trends in the future.
And that goes back to my original question: Can the US special climate envoy agree to a future negotiation with CCP counterparts in Beijing?
In Areas & Producers, we are always wanting to put the global commodities in perspective, and for what it means to the geopolitical trends in any given regional context around the world. That’s why I’m offering this previous update from the publication about the United Kingdom’s trade role in the Indo-Pacific, as well as content about Deep Sea Mining’s impact on climate change. It’s important to know the role of the United Kingdom and United States within the wider geopolitical trends of the Indo-Pacific.
Areas: Welcoming the United Kingdom Into CPTPP, the Largest Indo-Pacific Trade Bloc
- The United Kingdom (UK) just signed a treaty with Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) members to formally join the Indo-Pacific trade bloc at a signing ceremony in New Zealand on 16 July 2023.
- According to a report about the deal by CNBC, UK business and trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, said that one of the reasons for signing this treaty is because it will give the country “huge opportunities and unparalleled access to a market of over 500 million people.” CNBC
- Indeed this is true. The CPTPP trade bloc consists of Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan.
- This Indo-Pacific trade partnership has not been a story of roses and rainbows. Geopolitics have had a massive impact on those countries, which is one of the benefits of them coming together for economic cooperation.
China is a big part of the story. Take note how the CPTPP member list ends with “Japan” but doesen’t include the United States or People’s Republic of China (PRC).
But another geopolitical trend relevant to the Indo-Pacific is deep-sea mining. For example, It has been reported by Oilprice.com that proposals to open up exploration opportunities for deep-sea mining are already trying to lift off in Norway.
This is a big development, as many of the world’s critical metals are to be found in the deep-sea maritime areas.
Please go back and read that last sentence carefully — “many of the world’s critical metals are to be found in the deep-sea maritime areas”.
This means one thing only: maritime borders and disputes are likely to reignite tensions between government, in addition to the evironmental, industries and wildlife impact that is the biggest focus from current reporting on this trend.
Critical metals include copper, nickel, cobalt, maganese, lithium, among others. Copper and nickel, along with potash fertilizers, form part of the future-facing commodities push from the global mining sector to increase output for global mega-trends.
For a deeper dive into how to use Concept Development to understand International Affairs, read the full story in Areas & Producers:
