US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that China's leader Xi Jinping made a "big mistake" by not attending the Glasgow climate and G20 summits but said he hoped for talks to prevent conflict.
"It's been a big mistake, quite frankly, for China not showing up. The rest of the world looked at China and said 'what value are they providing?'," Biden told a news conference at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
"It just is a gigantic issue and they walked away. How do you do that and claim to be able to have any leadership?" Biden said, adding that the same was true for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Xi, who leads the world's largest emitter of carbon emissions responsible for climate change, has not travelled outside of China since the beginnings of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.
US officials had earlier expected Xi to meet Biden for the first time as president at this weekend's Group of 20 summit in Rome.
The two countries, however, instead said they would meet virtually by the end of the year. Biden said no date has been set.
More than 100 world leaders signed a declaration Monday committing to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.
Under the agreement, 12 countries also pledged to spend $12 billion in public funds between 2021 and 2025 to protect and restore forests, and an additional $7.2 billion will be provided by private investors.
The announcement of the Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use came on day one of the summit.
On Tuesday, the US and EU announced a global partnership to cut emissions of greenhouse methane by 2030. The partnership dubbed The Global Methane Pledge will work towards reducing methane emissions by 30% by the end of the decade.
The conference will continue until Nov. 12 with numerous panels, meetings and side events, all looking for remedies to reduce the levels of global warming by keeping it to 1.5 Celsius.
