April 6, 2021:-No single country can solve the climate crisis. The American pursuit of more significant research and development on climate change is not a counter to China, the Biden administration’s climate envoy John Kerry told CNBC on Sunday.

 Biden has made climate change a key priority of his administration. His clean energy measures, including public funding for electric vehicles (EVs), millions of additional EV charging ports, and retrofitting buildings and homes, aim to achieve the long-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2050; the White House has said.

His massive $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, if signed into law, would be one of America’s most significant federal efforts ever to stem its greenhouse gas emissions. 

The plan includes U.S. invested $35 billion into clean technologies and spend $174 billion on overhauling the country’s EV market. But that still pales compared to what China has spent on pure energy research and development in recent years.

China’s R&D spending increased 10.3% to $378 billion in 2020, outpacing the U.S., according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. China also accounts for nearly 30% of the world’s CO2 emissions, above double that of the U.S.

“No, I’m not worried in the least because President Biden has a plan,” he said. Kerry was a secretary of state under Barack Obama when Biden was vice president.

“This is not about China; this is not a counter to China. This is about China, the United States, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Australia, a bunch of countries that are emitting a pretty sizable amount, the United States and China the most,” Kerry added.

Kerry added that both countries make up around 45% of all global emissions.

Adding Europe to the list accounts for half the global total. Europe has made more significant progress than either China or the United States attempting to slow climate change.

China and the U.S. remain at loggerheads over several issues, particularly on trade, human rights, intellectual property, and technology. 

In early April, one research director from Bank of America spoke of a “climate war” between Washington and Beijing to follow rivalry around technology and trade.

The first high-level meeting amid China and the U.S. under Biden’s presidency took place in Alaska in March. The meeting saw open hostility to the extent that’s very rare among diplomats. But one area where the two countries urged cooperation was the climate.