BEIJING—Chinese leader Xi Jinping will attend a U.S.-led climate change summit on Thursday at the invitation of President Joe Biden, in the first meeting between the two leaders since the advent of the new U.S. administration.
Biden has invited dozens of world leaders to join the two-day virtual summit starting on Thursday, after bringing the United States back into the 2015 Paris Agreement on cutting global carbon emissions.
Beijing and Washington have persistently clashed over a range of issues from human rights abuses to China’s economic clout over other nations.
In Alaska last month, U.S. and Chinese officials held the first high-level in-person talks that bristled with rancor and yielded no diplomatic breakthroughs.
Last week, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry travelled to Shanghai to meet with his Chinese counterpart in the first high-level visit to China by a Biden administration official. Both agreed on actions “in the 2020s” to reduce emissions.
The talks also marked a resumption of climate dialogue halted during the Donald Trump administration, who withdrew from the Paris agreement.
