America’s special envoy on climate change John Kerry has told Sky News that strained relations between the US and China have made it harder for him to do his job.
Speaking exclusively to Sky from a climate summit in Milan, Mr Kerry said his ability to persuade China to be more ambitious in reducing its carbon emissions has been affected by the growing geo-political tensions between the two superpowers.
He said: “It’s been more complicated because of other issues.
Image: John Kerry arrives to attend the Youth4Climate pre-COP26 conference in Milan
“Originally… climate was going to be treated on its own, because of its urgent demands.
“But reality has crept in, in the last few months, and so there’s been a slowdown in our ability to be able to move.
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“My hope is that we will still be able to find some common ground.
“I will be meeting with my counterpart from China shortly, and we are both hopeful that we can make some progress.”
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Mr Kerry has previously said that if China fails to shift its net zero carbon emissions target from 2060 to 2050, then the rest of the world’s efforts to tackle global warming could be in vain.
I ask him what message it will send to the rest of the world if China’s President Xi Jinping does not turn up to COP26 in Glasgow in person.
He says: “I actually haven’t really thought about it very much to be truthful.
“Some 190 some countries will come… and it’s not going to be defined by if President Xi shows up.
“The vast, vast majority of countries in the world are very anxious to be part of a moment where we really turn a corner, and we’re heading in the right direction of the climate crisis.”
Does special envoy Kerry fully trust that he is the right person to help lead the global fight against the climate crisis?
He said: “Well, the proof is in the pudding, right?
“I think this is not a matter of trust in the sense that we’re making judgements about whether we trust this or trust that.
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“He’s committed to this, and he’s publicly doing major things in order to try to make this work.
“And I’ve been impressed by the statements he’s made to date, committing his government and the world to take action, and I think he’s offering leadership.
“But in the end you know we have to get there, and it’s the doing the actions… that’s what will determine, what should determine, the judgements people will make about Glasgow and what happens there.”
I ask the former US secretary of state if he ever feels anger towards those nations and leaders who are not willing to act.
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19 September: China yet to confirm COP26 attendance
He says: “I feel frustration in the length of time and the slowness with which, as a world, we have been moving to date.
“People have been put in jeopardy by current practices, and for the last 30 years, we have known how bad it is and still, people are moving too slowly.
“You know I’m not going to get lost and try to just voice anger, I’m going to try day to day to do my best, which is what I’m doing.
“I consider myself lucky to be able to be in the middle of that fight.
He pauses and adds, slightly jokingly, “Sometimes I can reserve the anger and scream in the dark, but I couldn’t do it publicly.”
Photos in Australian media on Wednesday are said to show Ms Giuffre being driven in a vehicle north of Perth.
The 41-year-old appeared with a bruised face last week when she posted an Instagram video saying her car had been hit by a speeding school bus as she slowed for a turn.
She said: “I’ve gone into kidney renal failure, they’ve given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology.
“I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time…”
Police said they had received a report of a “minor crash” between a school bus and a car in Neergabby, about 12 miles from Perth, on 24 March.
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“The collision was reported by the bus driver the following day,” said a spokeswoman. “There were no reported injuries as a result of the crash.”
Ms Giuffre is reported to have separated from her husband.
The case was due back in court today (9 April).
Image: Ms Giuffre reached a settlement with the duke in 2022. File pic: AP
Ms Giuffre sued the Duke of York for sexual abuse in August 2021, saying Andrew had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by his friend, the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In March 2022, it was announced Ms Giuffre and Andrew had reached an out-of-court settlement – believed to include a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”.
The severity cannot be overstated, if an additional 50% tariffs are levied on all Chinese goods it will decimate trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
Remember, 50% would sit on top of what is already on the table: 34% announced last week, 20% announced at the start of US President Donald Trump’s term, and some additional tariffs left over from his first term in office.
In total, it means all Chinese goods would face tariffs of over 100%, some as high as 120%.
It’s a price that makes any trade almost impossible.
China is really the only nation in the world at the moment that is choosing to take a stand.
While others are publicly making concessions and sending delegations to negotiate, China has clearly calculated that not being seen to be bullied is worth the cost that retaliation will bring.
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6:50
Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump
The real question, though, is if the US does indeed impose this extra 50% tomorrow, what could or would China do next?
There are some obvious measures that China will almost certainly enact.
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Further export controls on rare earth minerals (crucial for the development of high-tech products) are one example. China controls a huge proportion of the world’s supply, but the US would likely find workarounds in time.
Hiking tariffs on high-impact US products such as agricultural goods is another option, but there is only so far this could go.
The potentially more impactful options have significant drawbacks for Beijing.
It could, for instance, target high-profile American companies such as Apple and Tesla, but this isn’t ideal at a time when China is trying to attract more foreign investment, and some devaluation of the currency is possible, but it would also come with adverse effects.
Other options are more political and come with the risk of escalation beyond the economic arena.
In an opinion piece this morning, the editor of Xinhua, China’s state news agency, speculated that China could cease all cooperation with the US on the war against fentanyl.
This has been a major political issue for Mr Trump, and it’s hard to see it would not constitute some sort of red line for him.
Other options touted include banning the import of American films, or perhaps calling for the Chinese public to boycott all American products.
Anything like this comes with a sense that the world’s two most powerful superpowers might be teetering on the edge of not just a total economic decoupling, but cultural separation too.
There is understandably serious nervousness about how that could spiral and the precedent it sets.
Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.
The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.
“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”
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0:54
White House announces 104% tariff on China
After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.
The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.
China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.
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‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect
Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.
The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.
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2:03
What’s going on with the US and China?
Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.
As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.
According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.
Image: Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.
The directives order: • keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open; • directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands; • requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and; • directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.
At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.