US Energy Secretary Steven Chu and US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are in China. They’re meeting with their Chinese counterparts to discuss combating global warming. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports. Listen
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LAURA LYNCH: One downside to China’s rapid growth is its spike in greenhouse gas emissions. A recent report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences projected that China’s emissions could double within 20 years. And so far the Chinese government has resisted calls to commit to steep cuts. But US officials say they’re encouraged nonetheless by China’s efforts on climate change. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke were in Beijing this week for talks on climate and energy issues. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad has our report.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: China is now the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, much of them come from burning coal, which provides about two-thirds of China’s energy.
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MARY KAY MAGISTAD: But this power plant at the edge of Beijing may be a sign of cleaner things to come. It’s experimenting with capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground. The plant’s manager gave US Energy Secretary Steven Chu a tour this morning.
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MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Chu says he’s impressed with China’s commitment to projects like this, but many new energy technologies are in their infancy, and will cost billions of dollars to develop. Both the US and China are now shoveling stimulus funds into doing just that. This week, they agreed to do some of that research together, through a new joint clean energy research center. It will work on cleaner coal, vehicles, and buildings, like the net-zero energy house Secretary Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke visited today in Beijing.
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MARY KAY MAGISTAD: The house combines technologies like solar power, advanced materials and energy recycling. It was jointly designed by a Chinese professor and a Chicago builder of sustainable homes. Locke liked the home.
GARY LOCKE: This is a great example of cooperation, because we’re talking about technology that’s developed in the United States, and actually being constructed and deployed here in China as well. So if China were to adopt green energy construction methods, it will also result in thousands, millions of jobs.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Other efforts to improve energy efficiency in China would too. China is promoting those projects, but resisting setting firm targets on greenhouse gas reductions. Chinese officials say developed countries need to go first, because they’re responsible for most of the problem. Still, Energy Secretary Chu also had a positive take on China’s efforts to combat global warming.
STEVEN CHU: ‘What China has done is through their actions demonstrated that they recognize the serious consequences that they face, as well as the world faces, if the world, China included, doesn’t start to take aggressive action. So let’s say I am optimistic of what is gonna be happening in Copenhagen.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: Copenhagen will be the site of global climate treaty talks in December. Chu’s optimism about that summit isn’t shared by everyone. Charlie McElwee is a Shanghai-based environmental lawyer who writes a blog on China’s environment. He says it’s not looking like the US will get its own climate bill passed before the summit.
CHARLIE MCELWEE: And it’s pretty clear that China is still presenting, at least on a public footing, the standard line that it’s had for a year or more now. So there’s been absolutely no movement on the Chinese side with respect to what it’s willing to do in a Copenhagen deal.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: China’s line has been that developed countries should do a lot more to reduce their emissions, before they start asking developing countries like China to cut into their own economic growth. So, China has refused to set a hard target for a verifiable emissions cut. But McElwee thinks something else may also be going on.
CHARLIE MCELWEE: If you sign up for internationally verifiable limits, then that means that the figures that you produce with respect to energy efficiency, carbon intensity, are gonna be audited on an international basis. And I think China is afraid of being embarrassed by having auditors pouring over those books. That it simply doesn’t have the capacity yet, to actually get a good handle on what its carbon emissions are.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: But that doesn’t mean China can’t make real progress. Whether or not there’s an agreement in Copenhagen, the two US secretaries visiting Beijing this week say China is at least heading in the right direction, and the kind of Sino-US cooperation agreed to this week could help it pick up its speed. For The World, I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.
LAURA LYNCH: So is China a help or a hindrance when it comes to climate change? We put that question to Julian Wong. He’s an expert on China’s evolving energy policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington. Wong says many people don’t appreciate how quickly China is cleaning up its act.
JULIAN WONG: Really have to update our understanding of China. Yes, it has a bad reputation of being highly polluting and dirty, but that’s starting to change. And we’re at that moment in time where we’re seeing both. It’s still largely dirty, but that’s getting. And the clean sources are starting to grow bigger and bigger.
LAURA LYNCH: You can find out more about what China is doing to address climate change, and join Julian Wong in an online discussion at the-world-dot-org. Just look under “on air links.”
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Thank you for highlighting and clarifying China’s contribution to the international effort to combat the climate crisis.
Credit should be given where credit is due– so your contribution is appreciated.
Learn more about you can use your spheres of influence to combat climate change at http://www.ourspheresofinfluence.com.