Environment

Brookings: “Overcoming Obstacles to U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change”

This post is written by Carolyn Gou, special contributor to RespChi.

Carolyn is a junior at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where she is majoring in English literature. She says she has a passion for NGO promotion in China and wants to further her studies in public affairs. She is currently interning at the World Resources Institute through the U.S-China Bilateral Trade Program.

Host

John L. Thornton, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Brookings Institution

Mr. Thornton hosted the conference, firstly introducing all the panelists and mentioning the strategic meaning of cooperation on climate change for U.S- China relations.

Opening Remarks

Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United States

Mr. Zhou said the fight against climate change calls for efficient technology transfer and global efforts in fundraising. And the priority would be improving energy efficiency.

Presentation

Kenneth G. Lieberthal, Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution

Mr. Lieberthal gave an introduction to the report, “Overcoming Obstacles to U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change.” As the co-author of the report, he says climate change has been brought up with “political enthusiasm.” He mentioned key building blocks of this issue:

• The central governments should have a clear image of the current situation, with a comprehensive understanding of the concrete challenges.
• There is a misconception between China and the U.S. that China has been doing a lot improving its domestic environment, while the Western world is taking more efforts on a global level. This is not accurate. Also, the U.S. believes that cooperation with China on climate change won’t work if China refuses to take more sound action, i.e. carbon trade legislation. In fact, neither side is doing enough.
• Both sides do not have a comprehensive understanding of the capacity of each other’s political system, which would allow them to make better judgment.
• There are political issues involved in climate change cooperation.

David B. Sandalow, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

As the co-author of this report, Mr. Sandalow briefly introduced the nine recommendations raised in the report, directed to both the leadership in China and the U.S.:

1. acknowledge the legitimacy of each other’s perspective
2. build a clean energy framework for cooperation
3. highlight one or two major headline initiatives
4. emphasize co-development of technology
5. promote local-to-local cooperation
6. promote capacity building
7. seek common grounds on commitments
8. use and improve existing structures for cooperation
9. highlight clean energy in a US.-China summit

More over, he commented that the report explicitly focuses on the U.S.-China issue, but this focus is not efficient enough to solve the climate change problem. Other countries like Japan and India are definitely playing important roles, too.

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