China won’t be following the Biden timeline for climate pledges

The U.S. and China have set a tone for cooperating on climate change this decade, but Beijing is still holding off on delivering concrete near-term pledges ahead of President Joe Biden’s big summit event later this week.

The world’s two largest emitters issued a broad but vague statement this past weekend after climate envoy John Kerry’s last gasp China trip to meet with his counterpart Xie Zhenhua.

Kerry was particularly keen to sell a provision of the joint statement that commits both countries to pursuing “enhanced climate actions that raise...