John Kerry aims to put China tensions aside at crucial climate talks

John Kerry, the US climate envoy, has called for more rapid action to confront the climate crisis in a crucial visit to China that is taking place against a fraught backdrop, with both countries currently baking under record heatwaves and Kerry facing hostile opposition from Republicans back home.

Kerry’s meeting with Xie Zhenhua, his Chinese counterpart, for three days of formal talks in Beijing is the first substantive summit between the world’s two largest carbon emitters on the climate crisis since relations were frozen last August, when Nancy Pelosi, the then-House of Representatives speaker, visited Taiwan, a move condemned by China’s leadership.

The visit comes amid roiling heatwaves across the world, including in the US, where more than a third of the population is under heat warnings and where, in California’s Death Valley, a temperature close to the hottest ever recorded reliably in the world was reached on Sunday. China, meanwhile, has just had its national record temperature set in the western region of Xinjiang, where it reached 52.2C (125F).