Kerry's starts Cop27 with double tongue talk. Why?

First and foremost. If you want to stay in conversation with someone, don't step on his sensitive toes too often and stay out of his direct sphere of influence. If you don't behave like that, blame yourself and not him for ruining the atmosphere.

Second, the idea that territorial and climate issues should be dealt with in separate bubbles may be true for Donald Duck, but not for anyone else. Or would Kerry want to buy an electric car with a neighbor who constantly cheats on him and threatens him in other matters?

Third, China is only a very small emitter of greenhouse gases if you consistently subtract from their current emissions all the emissions they commit for products and services they produce for Western consumers. Were you to do that, a Chinese probably comes out to less than 4 tons of carbon dioxide-eq per capita, and an American well over 30.

Kerry is just hedging here for a failure of Cop27. Mommy, I'm good!!