Early last month, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the special climate envoys representing the United States and China, held talks in southern California ahead of the Xi-Biden summit. The location—Sunnylands, a desert estate near Palm Springs—was symbolic. It was there that Xi Jinping and Barack Obama first met as presidents in 2013 and secured a climate breakthrough: a commitment to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, a group of powerful greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

Early last month, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the special climate envoys representing the United States and China, held talks in southern California ahead of the Xi-Biden summit. The location—Sunnylands, a desert estate near Palm Springs—was symbolic. It was there that Xi Jinping and Barack Obama first met as presidents in 2013 and secured a climate breakthrough: a commitment to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, a group of powerful greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

As Kerry and Xie arrived in Sunnylands 10 years later, they found themselves in more perilous circumstances, and with a finite window of opportunity. Friction between the U.S. and China disrupted climate talks in 2022, and new tensions—whether from the South China Sea or Taiwan’s upcoming January election—could slam the window shut again. Plus, Xie, China’s lead climate negotiator for the better part of two decades, will reportedly retire later this month.

The two envoys wasted no time during their summit, according to two climate experts familiar with the discussions. Kerry, who is 79, and Xie, who is 74 and recently recovered from a stroke, stayed up until 2 or 3 a.m. every night, hashing out plans. When the meetings reached their scheduled end, Kerry and his team drove west to Los Angeles with Xie, checking in to the Chinese team’s hotel to continue talking until their flight’s departure.

Climate has become a rare area of in-depth coordination between the two superpowers; the joint statement that would emerge from Sunnylands was the latest of three such statements from Xie and Kerry in the past three years. They are the elder statesmen of the climate circuit—Xie’s ruddy, round face as familiar as Kerry’s gaunt silhouette at international conferences. The extent of U.S.-China cooperation, former Chinese and U.S. officials as well as climate experts told Foreign Policy, is partly attributable to the two envoys and their bond, developed over decades of negotiations.

“This is a very good example of how personal leadership can transcend national differences,” said Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “I think both Xie and Kerry, they are pushing that potential to the limit.” The two men have known each other for 25 years, and for both, climate diplomacy is far more than a job—it is a mission.

Xie, then vice chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (left), and U.S. special envoy for climate change Todd Stern (right) initial a memorandum of understanding on clean energy and climate change between the U.S. and China in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 2009.Alex Wong/Getty Images

Born the same year as the People’s Republic of China, 1949, Xie’s early years were similar to those of many officials of that generation. During the Cultural Revolution, he was “sent down” to the countryside along with millions of other young people—to the northeastern tip of China, bordering Siberia. “My sense is the people who had that experience came back with a profound sense of the need for development, but [Xie] always coupled it with this view that the environment needs to be protected,” said Deborah Seligsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University who was formerly an environmental counselor at the U.S. Embassy in China.

Xie went on to study engineering at Tsinghua University and became an environmental official in the 1980s. By 1993 he was head of China’s version of the EPA. He held that position through the height of China’s economic boom—a difficult time to be in charge of protecting the environment. In 2005, Xie resigned from his position after a major chemical spill in the northern Songhua River. Though he had taken the fall for the crisis, he proved resilient. In 2007, he was appointed vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, a powerful post given the department’s role in economic planning. At the same time, he became China’s lead international climate negotiator—and it was then that his path intertwined with Kerry’s

Kerry’s own interest in environmentalism was sparked early on. “Carson instilled in me and a whole generation a sense of moral urgency,” Kerry wrote in his 2018 autobiography, referring to........

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