The United States and China, the world’s two largest climate polluters, have agreed to jointly tackle global warming by ramping up wind, solar and other renewable energy with the goal of displacing fossil fuels.

The announcement comes as President Biden prepares to meet Wednesday with President Xi Jinping of China for their first face-to-face discussion in a year. The climate agreement could emerge as a bright spot in talks that are likely to focus on sensitive topics including Taiwan, the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas.

China and the United States unveiled a rare climate agreement calling for greater joint action to tackle the climate crisis as President Xi Jinping arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday for his first visit to America in six years.

The United States and China pledged to strengthen cooperation on climate change and will work together on combating methane and plastic pollution, the State Department said Wednesday, signaling a thaw in icy diplomatic relations just hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s sitdown with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

President Joe Biden said Sunday his visit to Vietnam to showcase stronger ties with Hanoi was not about trying to start a “cold war” with China, but rather was part of a broader effort to provide global stability by building U.S. relationships throughout Asia at a time of tensions with Beijing.

“It’s not about containing China,” Biden said at a news conference in Vietnam’s capital after attending the Group of 20 summit in India. “It’s about having a stable base.”

The US and Vietnam have forged partnerships worth billions of dollars in the semiconductor, tech and aviation sectors, the countries announced during President Joe Biden's historic visit to Hanoi.

The visit has brought top executives from Google, Intel, Boeing and others to the table as part of the Vietnam-U.S. Innovation & Investment Summit. Vietnamese representatives included executives from the Nasdaq-listed electric car maker VinFast, Vietnam Airlines and VNG, a digital platform that filed for a US IPO in August.

President Joe Biden ended a Vietnam press conference on Sunday by frankly telling reporters he had to go to bed after wrapping up the 2023 Group of 20 summit.

Biden was speaking in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi after two days at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India. He was answering a question about China's relationship with the United States before announcing that he was sleepy.

"But I tell you what, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go to bed," Biden said to a group of reporters.

Chinese leaders rebuffed attempts by John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, to persuade them to commit to tougher climate action during three days of talks in Beijing, a response that suggested that tensions between the countries are making it difficult to work together on a crisis that threatens the planet.

Mr. Kerry emerged late Wednesday from the lengthy negotiations in Beijing with no new agreements. In fact, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, insisted in a speech that China would pursue its goals to phase out carbon dioxide pollution at its own pace and in its own way.

In the third high-level U.S. official visit to China in about a month, U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry emphasized efforts to stabilize the bilateral relationship.

“Now we’re in a place where because of the efforts of President Biden and President Xi to try to stabilize the relationship, we can now I hope, make progress between now and the meeting in the UAE, in December, of COP 28,” Kerry said Tuesday, in opening remarks at a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

John Kerry, the US climate envoy, has called for more rapid action to confront the climate crisis in a crucial visit to China that is taking place against a fraught backdrop, with both countries currently baking under record heatwaves and Kerry facing hostile opposition from Republicans back home.

Special Climate Envoy John Kerry arrived in China Sunday ahead of planned "in-depth" talks on climate change with the country's communist government.

"We need genuine cooperation," Kerry said ahead of the trip last week, according to the New York Times. "China and the United States are the two largest economies in the world and we’re also the two largest emitters. It’s clear that we have a special responsibility to find common ground."