Secretary of State John Kerry and PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on May 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
(CNSNews.com) - At a joint press conference in Beijing yesterday with People’s Republic of China Foreign Minister Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Obama administration intends to cooperate closely with the PRC leading into a U.N. climate conference in Paris in December and that the U.S. is “ending any funding” of coal-fired power projects.
President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget proposal calls for increasing taxes on the coal industry by $4.252 billion from 2016-2025 while providing "refundable" tax credits to "renewable" energy projects such as solar and wind power facilities.
“There are three key meetings that we are all working on together to prepare for in order to build success,” said Kerry. “One is the Security and Economic Dialogue that will take place in June in Washington. Two is the summit between President Xi and President Obama to take place in September. And three is the global meeting that we are working on together regarding climate change in Paris in December.”
“The United States and China are also cooperating more closely than ever to address climate change, one of the greatest threats facing our planet today,” said Kerry. “Last fall, our respective presidents came together to announce our countries’ greenhouse gas commitments, the reductions, and we continue to call on other nations around the world to set their own ambitious targets. And we agreed this morning that as we get closer to the UN Climate Conference in Paris later this year, the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, will elevate our cooperation and coordination so that we can reach the kind of global agreement that we will need to ultimately address this threat.”
“Because of climate change in the United States, we are ending any funding – public money – that funds coal-fired power projects because of their impact on the climate,” said Kerry. “And we encourage China and other countries to do the same.”
“We need to continue to strengthen our communication and coordination on climate change to jointly ensure the success of the upcoming climate conference in Paris later this year,” said the U.S. secretary of state. “Meanwhile, we need to also work together to advance our bilateral practical cooperation on climate change.”
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