It was Day 13 of the COP26 summit, and even the trees inside the Glasgow venue were beginning to wilt. With the meeting running almost 24 hours over its scheduled time and the final outcome hanging in the balance, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, huddled together deep in conversation. At one point Kerry grasped Xie’s shoulder, while China’s lead negotiator nodded and smiled as he enumerated points on his fingers. It was a candid moment between two longtime climate diplomats that belied the global rivalry, hinting at the possibility for collaboration ahead of Monday’s virtual meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. It came three days after a joint U.S.-China agreement in Glasgow that Jochen Flasbarth, who headed Germany’s delegation at COP26, described as the summit’s “high point.” Yet if that deal was the peak, the low point for many delegates also involved […]