The United States and China pledged to strengthen cooperation on climate change and will work together on combating methane and plastic pollution, the State Department said Wednesday, signaling a thaw in icy diplomatic relations just hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s sitdown with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Both countries agreed to revive their working group, which had been stalled since former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last year, and endorsed a new, G20-backed target that calls for the global tripling of renewable energy sources by 2030.

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“Both countries stress the importance of COP 28 in responding meaningfully to the climate crisis during this critical decade and beyond,” the two countries said in a joint statement, vowing “to rise up to one of the greatest challenges of our time for present and future generations of humankind.”

They also pledged to accelerate substitutions for coal, oil, and gas generation and to develop methane reduction targets.

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The news from the two largest polluters will likely be welcomed by world leaders ahead of the COP28 summit in Dubai. It also comes just hours before Biden and Xi are slated to meet in a rare face-to-face discussion on the sidelines of the APEC summit in California.

Still, it remains unclear how quickly China plans to make good on its commitments. The country releases roughly 12.7 billion metric tons of CO2 into the air annually and has approved new coal plant projects as recently as this year.