(Adds details of Xi's speech on Tuesday paragraphs 13-17)
By Valerie Volcovici and David Stanway
BEIJING, July 20 (Reuters) - U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said more work was needed this year to reach agreements with China on major climate issues, after three days of talks in Beijing to rebuild trust between the world's two biggest carbon polluters.
The two sides agreed climate change was urgent and that they should stick to the global commitment “to keep 1.5 alive,” Kerry said, referring to pledges to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.
That would mark a shift in China's tone, after Chinese officials in previous months appeared to question the latest United Nations scientific report on global warming.
The U.S.-China climate talks had been suspended nearly a year ago after a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, an island over which China claims sovereignty.
"We - our team and the United States administration - came to Beijing in order to unstick what has been stuck since almost last August," Kerry told reporters late on Wednesday.
While China said its climate policies would not be dictated by others, it planned further negotiations with the U.S. ahead of the next U.N. climate summit, COP28, starting Nov. 29 in Dubai, Kerry said.
"Further engagements should help unlock more ambition in reducing coal consumption, cutting methane emissions and beating a path towards a stronger outcome at COP28," said Li Shuo, senior climate adviser with the environmental group Greenpeace in Beijing.
Li described this week's talks as "a complex rescue operation for the U.S.-China climate dialogue".
Kerry lauded the meetings for realigning the countries on climate, telling reporters that the U.S. was pushing for a new framework agreement that would have China "embrace something they haven't embraced before." Kerry did not elaborate.
Earlier in the talks, Kerry told Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng that climate change was a "universal threat" that should be handled separately from broader diplomatic issues between China and the United States. He said holding global warming to near 1.5C would require significant Chinese efforts to reduce carbon dioxide, methane and other non-carbon-based greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. State Department said.
Acknowledging the recent diplomatic difficulties, Kerry said the climate issue requires the collective efforts of the world's largest economies to resolve.