It is not encouraging to see John Kerry returning from talks in China and suggesting he’s achieved some sort of climate change breakthrough. The last time he trumpeted success on an allied diplomatic mission, he was touting the 2016 Paris Agreement, in which he weakly acquiesced in hobbling United States interests in favor of our main global rival while doing nothing real to deal with the hyped problem with which the world was supposedly grappling.

If there was progress at all in Shanghai this month, it was entirely rhetorical. Beijing agreed to join Kerry in referring to climate change as a “crisis” to be “addressed with urgency.” The Chinese also lured him with the possibility of “enhancing” President Xi Jinping’s commitments on capping carbon emissions. “So the language is strong,” said President Joe Biden’s climate envoy.