United States-China Cooperation

The Cancun Agreements have been widely praised as a step forward for the international climate negotiating process to address climate change. In the run-up to this year’s meeting in Cancun there was a lot of concern about how the relationship between the United States and China would play out in the negotiations, and whether the competing interests of the world’s two largest emitters would be an impediment to progress. However, in these negotiations, there were improved relations– both in tone and engagement– between the United States and China.

In the hectic hallway traffic of the Moon Palace Resort, where the UN climate negotiations have been underway since last week, Washington University in St. Louis undergraduates Jiakun Zhao and John Delurey met with lead Chinese negotiator Su Wei. And by a stroke of luck, Jonathan Pershing, a senior U.S. negotiator, happened to walk by in a fortuitous moment reflective of the U.S. and China’s softer and more conciliatory tone in the talks.

“Late last year, Ren and around 40 other young Chinese people arrived in Copenhagen, hoping to break the silence of their peers on the international issue of climate change. They constituted the largest Chinese youth group ever to take part in a United Nations climate-change summit.”

-China Dialogue, April 14, 2010

The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced its third grant under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will receive $12.5 million from DOE over the next five years to lead a consortium on energy-efficient building technologies.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection recently renewed a memorandum of understanding to continue existing collaboration and establish new opportunities to work together on environmental protection.

Having the intercessional UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in China this week – the last stop before ministers and heads of state meet in Cancun for the sixteenth Conference of Parties (COP-16) – provides a timely opportunity for participants to witness firsthand elements of China’s clean energy and climate policies in action.

The international climate meetings in Tianjin on October 4-9 will be a key moment for US-China relations on climate and energy. Today ChinaFAQs experts held a press call to discuss how the countries are cooperating on climate and energy issues, and the challenges and benefits involved.

Former Vice President Al Gore launched his Climate Project’s lecture program in Beijing June 10, personally devoting an entire day to training 300 Chinese in how to give his famous lecture. The event was striking for the diversity and the quality of the participants. His partners in China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the China Agenda 21 Sustainable Development Office invited participants from all over China, including scholars, government officials, corporate middle managers, independent entrepreneurs, NGO staff and students.