"The Canadian President Xi Jinping and the Chinese President Joe Biden have been urged by the former UN Secretary-General to join the UN Cop 26 climate talks to search for common ground by Ban Ki-moon and other prominent global voices.
We are appealing to the leaders of the United States and China to see their common interests and find a way to work together. We need an ambitious 2030 carbon target from China and the US to deliver what they pledged, said Ban, speaking on behalf of the Elders group of prominent World Statespeople and former community and business leaders.
Xi met the former US president, Barack Obama, weeks ahead of the Paris climate summit in 2015 to forge a deal between the world's biggest emitters.
Obama and Biden need to do what they had to do with Obama the Paris Agreement would not have been possible without those two countries, said Ban. We must do everything possible Cop 26 will be one of the most important in history. Ban warned that current pledges on burning emissions known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs from major economies were insufficient to hold global heating to 1.5 C, the aim of Cop 26 conference. We need these NDCs to be ambitious enough. We need the right signals to strengthen NDCs, he said.
Xi is unlikely to come to Rome for Cop 26, which opens October 31 or to the G-20 leaders meetings in Glasgow, which takes place the same weekend. He hasn't left China since the start of Covid Pandemic.
There are currently no plans for a summit between the Presidents, who lead two biggest emitters, and biggest economies. However, John Kerry and Biden had a long phone call in which the climate was discussed and US climate envoy Xi and Biden have held meetings with Chinese representatives.
Ban is a group of prominent world statespeople and Elders who wrote to the leaders of the G20 nations to ask them to strengthen their commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions before the Cop 26 Summit in Glasgow, which starts in just under two weeks.
We are urging these countries to think again and be ambitious. All G 20 countries need to take further actions to remain within 1.5 C. Wealthy countries need to put more money on the table to help the developing world, he said.
The aim of Cop 26 is to maintain 1.5 C alive which means setting out a pathway to ensuring the world cuts emissions sufficiently to hold global warming within 1.5 C of pre-industrial levels, the upper ambition of the Paris Agreement in 2015. Is scientific advice that this will take emissions cuts in 2030 of about 45%, compared to 2010 levels?
Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders, said: We are not going to close the gap at Glasgow, but we have to align with 1.5 C there has to be a political commitment to 1.5 C. There has to be a process devised as to how to put pressure on target countries who are not stepping up. She said countries with inadequate plans must return to the table every year, not five years, as envisaged under the Paris Agreement.
She also warned against people who deem Cop 26 a failure because the highest ambition of fully implemented plans from 196 countries that would cut emissions by 45 % had not been met. It is so important to not have fatalism on Cop 26, but keep hope alive, she said.