By staff reporters Wang Yu and Qian Yinan

(Caijing Magazine) An American writer once quipped that everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

That's not the case with Chinese and U.S. leaders. They've talked a lot about the weather this year, and in many ways they're starting to do something about it together – at least in the area of controlling the effects of human activity on climate change.

Cooperating on climate change was the focus of a telephone conversation October 21 between Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama. The two men are set to continue their discussion during Obama's first official visit to Beijing in mid-November.

Most observers agree that these countries, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters and notable non-signatories of the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming, have a lot to sort out before joining other participating nations in December at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in Denmark, where international leaders hope to thrash out details for a new global climate change compact.

Kyoto is set to expire in 2012. The process was launched in 1997 to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As of October, the protocol had been ratified by 184 governments.

And as the Copenhagen meeting approaches, Washington and Beijing have been stepping up their cooperation efforts by confronting climate change challenges unilaterally and bilaterally.   

Coordinated Efforts

On the home front, Obama offered a down payment for accelerated development of the U.S. clean energy sector when he signed the Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February. Three months later, China released its basic position for the Copenhagen conference.

Further progress came in July, when Congress passed the Clean Energy and Security Act, setting the stage for cutting domestic emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels, and giving future U.S. administrations the authority to levy "carbon tariffs" on countries that do not set fixed quotas on greenhouse gas emissions.

That same month, during a visit to China by U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding with China for tightening building codes and retrofitting existing buildings to cut energy waste. They also agreed to set up a joint research center on clean energy.

Then at a U.S.-China Security and Economic Dialogue in Washington, the two countries signed another memorandum to strengthen climate change, energy and environmental cooperation.

In September, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the Davos World Economic Forum that the country's energy consumption per GDP, sulfur dioxide emissions and chemical oxygen demand have fallen by 10 percent, 9 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively. Later, Hu promised at a UN Climate Summit that China would significantly lower per-GDP carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 compared with the level in 2005.

And in September, the United States and China launched eight initiatives on clean energy cooperation, including an initiative to create strategic energy zones in each country aimed at removing policy and technological barriers to progress.

Common Ground

Although China and the United States have many shared interests and good reasons for cooperating in the climate change arena, they may lack confidence in their ability to find direction for fleshing them out.

This shortcoming appears to have been behind the blank-face reactions among participants at a recent U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum in Beijing. The stares were in response to comments by Stapleton Roy, a former U.S. ambassador to China, when he asked for something more concrete from the two countries.

It seems what frustrated some forum participants was not a lack of mutual trust for confronting climate change, but that they found the interaction of economic development, energy security and environmental protection unsettlingly complex.

Many in the United States argue that, without participation by major emerging economies, any protocol on climate change and emissions reductions would fail. But what China argues is that economic and environmental development should be balanced. As a result, Chinese leaders say they can't accept a legally binding, quantifiable target for cutting emissions at the current stage of negotiations. Instead, the Chinese government says climate change is a developmental issue.

"The environment issue can't be separated from energy and the economy," said Wang Jisi, dean of Peking University's International Relations School, whose view reflects the Chinese government stance.

Expectations Gap

While leaders of many countries want to bring a big gift to the Copenhagen summit, they generally understand that managing different expectations is difficult.

Europe, for example, is demanding that developing countries assume more responsibility for curbing greenhouse emissions. China insists on associating "historical reasons" for climate change with "common but differentiated" responsibilities. And the U.S. delegation is shadowed by the fact that the Senate has yet to approve a key measure aimed at improving energy efficiency and cutting emissions.

China's perspective is that coordinating development goals and emissions limits is key to advancing the spirit of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, thus bridging the goals of Kyoto and Copenhagen, and capping the planet's rising temperature below 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 -- a goal set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN scientific body evaluating climate change risks.

To reach these goals, scientists have called for broad promotion and general application of technology for clean energy, renewable energy and energy efficiency, which together can play an effective role in cushioning the effects of global warming.

At the recent forum in Beijing, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy David Sandalow listed six potential areas for bilateral cooperation: energy efficiency, clean coal, electric vehicles, renewable energy, nuclear power and global climate change negotiations.

China argues that successful sharing of information and technology between Washington and Beijing in the first five of these fields would strengthen their bargaining positions in Copenhagen, and show the world that they are determined to reduce emissions with development.

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang stressed at the forum that bilateral cooperation should focus on the transfer and large-scale application of mature technologies for developing coal bed methane extraction and nuclear power. He also backs joint development and research in future application technologies such as electric cars, and carbon control through absorption and storage.

But to a certain extent, intellectual property rights protection and export restrictions impede cooperation in new technology and new energy areas. These barriers have led to proposals for a technology exchange mechanism as well as an alliance for innovation, with the goal of mutually benefits and technology transfers.

Pending Issues

Existing technologies might be able to manage the current climate crisis, said Al Gore, a former U.S. vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, in his keynote speech at the forum dinner. But bottlenecks can be found in areas such as photovoltaic power, wind energy and electric cars. He also admitted that nuclear waste disposal and nuclear reactor security issues pose serious challenges.

Debates over various energy operation mechanisms pose another challenge. For example, the emissions trading scheme (ETS) used by European countries provides allowances for achieving reductions in emissions. By sending a price signal, it encourages the energy sector to invest in efficiency and cut emissions. But adding allowances makes energy and electricity more expensive, which could hurt European competitiveness in international trade. Thus, European countries are pushing for applying ETS worldwide.

In contrast, the United States, with neither policies for obligatory emissions limits nor market signals, lets businesses set their own goals for cutting emissions.

Zhou Dadi, deputy secretary-general of the China Energy Research Society, told Caijing that Beijing can realize energy efficiency via government policy, but that the United States needs a system that includes market signals.

Another view was floated by Taiya Smith, senior associate to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former executive secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury. She told the forum that Chinese and U.S. companies need definite signals before they begin concrete technological cooperation on climate change issues.

Smith said China and the United States have encountered problems with in setting up an implementation institution and mechanism and putting specified personnel in charge. 

On the other hand, top scientists and engineers in the two countries have been working on projects that underscore commitments by Beijing and Washington to really do something about climate change.

He Dexin, president of the Chinese Wind Energy Association, told Caijing that the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering are working on a joint project for large-scale power generation based on renewable energy.

The four academies plan to submit a report to Washington and Beijing soon that outlines a proposed roadmap for developing renewable energy.

At the same time, He recommended that the Chinese government tighten control of standards and product inspections, while setting up a closer exchange with the United States in these areas.

Full article in Chinese: http://magazine.caijing.com.cn/2009-10-25/110293858.html