Tag: Global Warming

Extreme Heat Grips 3 Continents as Climate Change Warms Earth

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Punishing heat waves gripped three continents on Tuesday, breaking records in cities around the Northern Hemisphere less than two weeks after the Earth recorded what scientists said were likely its hottest days in modern history. Firefighters in Greece scrambled to put out wildfires, as parched conditions raised the risk of more blazes throughout Europe. Beijing logged another day of 95-degree heat, and people Hangzhou, another Chinese city, compared the choking conditions to a sauna. From the Middle East to the American Southwest, delivery drivers, airport workers and construction crews labored…

As China Bakes in Record Heat, John Kerry Presses Beijing on Climate Change

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In the sandstone desert of China’s far west, a local meteorological station recorded an all-time high temperature of 126 degrees. In central China, heat-induced mechanical problems trapped tourists riding on a cable car in midair. The heat wave choking China is so intense that it even became a repeated talking point for John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, as he met with China’s premier on Tuesday in Beijing to discuss cooperation on slowing global warming. “You and I know things are changing,” Mr. Kerry told the premier,…

Kerry Says U.S. and China Must Set Aside Politics to Tackle Climate Change

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The United States and China are running out of time to avert a harrowing future brought on by global warming, John Kerry, President Biden’s envoy for climate change, warned on Monday at the resumption of talks with Beijing that had stalled for nearly a year amid geopolitical tensions. Mr. Kerry challenged the Chinese government to curb the rapid expansion of its fleet of coal-fired power plants and said the rest of the world is looking to the two economic powers and major polluters to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions from…

As U.S. and China Resume Climate Talks, Here’s Where Things Stand

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But she added, “The question is whether it is in a position to talk about phasing coal out faster.” Despite its enormous economy and emissions, China tries to position itself as a defender of the developing world. For nearly two decades, China has been the biggest national emitter, but its average pollution per person is lower than in most wealthy countries, and Beijing has long maintained that those nations should shoulder a greater burden in cutting greenhouse gases and financing global action. Mr. Xie and other officials are likely to…

Republicans Assail Kerry Before His Climate Talks With China

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Republicans on Thursday accused John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate, of being soft on China as he prepared to travel to Beijing to restart discussions between the world’s top two polluting countries. In a contentious hearing before a House Committee on Foreign Affairs panel, Republicans attacked Mr. Kerry for not doing enough to persuade China to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, several also sought to portray Mr. Kerry as putting Chinese interests above those of the United States by negotiating with America’s top economic…

Yellen Urges China to Cooperate More on Climate Finance

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The Biden administration called on China on Saturday to do more to help developing countries combat climate change, urging the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases to back international climate finance funds that it has so far declined to support. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen delivered the message during her second day of meetings in Beijing, where she is seeking to cultivate areas of cooperation between the United States and China. While China has expressed support for programs to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change, it…

John Kerry to Visit China to Restart Climate Negotiations

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WASHINGTON — John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said on Thursday he would travel to China next week to restart global warming negotiations between the world’s two largest polluters. Mr. Kerry’s trip will mark the first climate discussions between the United States and China since August, when Beijing cut off talks in anger after Nancy Pelosi, who was House speaker at the time, visited Taiwan. The talks come as the highest global temperatures ever recorded, driven by the burning of fossil fuels as well as the climate…

China Reels From Floods and a Bruising Heat Wave

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China and several other Asia Pacific countries were reeling from monsoonal floods and stultifying temperatures on Wednesday, the latest disruptions in what forecasters say could be a long summer and autumn of extreme weather around the world. The authorities in China said on Wednesday that 15 people had died and four others were missing as a result of flooding in the sprawling southwestern city of Chongqing, according to the state-run news media. In another sign of how bad the flooding was in China, news footage showed rescuers in the central…

Why What We Thought About the Global Economy Is No Longer True

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When the world’s business and political leaders gathered in 2018 at the annual economic forum in Davos, the mood was jubilant. Growth in every major country was on an upswing. The global economy, declared Christine Lagarde, then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, “is in a very sweet spot.” Five years later, the outlook has decidedly soured. “Nearly all the economic forces that powered progress and prosperity over the last three decades are fading,” the World Bank warned in a recent analysis. “The result could be a lost…

Europe Frets U.S. Battery Factory Subsidies Will Hurt, Not Help

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European leaders complained for years that the United States was not doing enough to fight climate change. Now that the Biden administration has devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to that cause, many Europeans are complaining that the United States is going about it the wrong way. That new critique is born of a deep fear in Germany, France, Britain and other European countries that Washington’s approach will hurt the allies it ought to be working with, luring away much of the new investments in electric car and battery factories not already…