US-China joint efforts vital: Biden

Joint efforts by the US and China can generate many possibilities and the leadership of the two countries is vital to achieving a successful global climate agreement in Paris later this year, US Vice President Joe Biden has said.

At the closing ceremony of the China-US Climate Leaders Summit in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Biden said: "There is no obvious reason why the US and China can be competitors or enemies... Now we have an opportunity to use that relationship that can have the potential to have profound impact on our planet future," Xinhua reported.

"We must reach an agreement that is ambitious, effective, and drives down the global emissions in the decades to come," he said, adding that "it's in our power to do this".

The US and China, the largest developed and developing countries in the world, together account for 40 percent of the global greenhouse gas emission.

The two-day summit, with the full name as the First Session of the US-China Climate-Smart/Low Carbon Cities Summit, gathered officials from central, federal and local governments in both countries to discuss strategies and measures to combat climate change.

The summit fulfils a key element of the China-US Joint Announcement on Climate Change by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama last November, and "helps to ensure that the ambitious actions to address climate change that both leaders committed to will be implemented at the state and local level, where they matter most," the White House said on its website.