Given the scale of their economies, cooperation between the U.S. and China is considered vital to international efforts to avert the worst impacts of climate change. While in Beijing, Yellen stressed that both countries need to work closely together on the issue.

China and the United States are the world’s two biggest sources of carbon dioxide emissions and their cooperation has been seen as a vital part of global efforts to curb global warming.

But while Kerry has sought to insulate climate from broader diplomatic tensions between the two sides, formal talks were suspended last August following the visit of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China claims.