By Muyu Xu and David Stanway
(Reuters) -&nbsp;China's&nbsp;veteran&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change&nbsp;envoy,&nbsp;Xie&nbsp;Zhenhua, is set to retire in&nbsp;December&nbsp;at the end of this year's COP28&nbsp;climate&nbsp;talks in Dubai, a government official familiar with the situation confirmed on Wednesday.
Xie, who turns 74 this month, will be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, a former Chinese vice-foreign minister and United Nations Under-Secretary General, according to the official, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Born in Tianjin in 1949,&nbsp;Xie&nbsp;served as&nbsp;China's&nbsp;top environmental official from 1999 to 2005, when he was forced to&nbsp;step&nbsp;down&nbsp;after a catastrophic benzine explosion left 5 million people without water supplies.
He first represented China in global&nbsp;climate&nbsp;negotiations in 2007 after his appointment as vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's state planning agency. He led&nbsp;China's&nbsp;delegation during ill-fated and sometimes ill-tempered&nbsp;climate&nbsp;negotiations in Copenhagen in&nbsp;December&nbsp;2009.
Experts say his friendly relationship with U.S. counterpart Todd Stern was vital in achieving consensus between the world's top two greenhouse gas emitters and helped get the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement over the line.
"The role of individuals matters a great deal in&nbsp;climate&nbsp;diplomacy," said Li Shuo, senior adviser at Greenpeace in Beijing.
"Over his long tenure as&nbsp;China's&nbsp;chief negotiator,&nbsp;Xie&nbsp;has demonstrated that it is possible to bridge the differences between China and the West," he added.
Climate&nbsp;talks between Washington and Beijing broke&nbsp;down&nbsp;during the presidency of Donald Trump, and&nbsp;Xie&nbsp;quit as&nbsp;envoy&nbsp;a year later. He remained involved in building&nbsp;climate&nbsp;ties with the United States, helping set up the California-China&nbsp;Climate&nbsp;Institute with then governor Jerry Brown.
He returned as special&nbsp;envoy&nbsp;in 2021 after the election of President Joe Biden brought the United States back into the Paris Agreement, but his friendship with Stern's replacement, John Kerry, has not been enough to overcome rising geopolitical tensions between the countries.
China has repeatedly told the United States that&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change is not a diplomatic "oasis" that could be separated from broader disputes between the two sides, including U.S. tariffs and sanctions on Chinese-produced solar panels.
Formal talks resumed between&nbsp;Xie&nbsp;and Kerry in Beijing in July this year and the two are set to meet again this week ahead of an APEC summit in San Francisco.
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(Reporting by Muyu Xu and David Stanway in Singapore, Editing by William Maclean)

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China's veteran climate envoy Xie to step down in December - govt source