Expectations are mounting on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to the U.S. on enhanced collaboration in fighting climate change with its U.S. counterpart.
Despite China setting ambitious goals to curb carbon emission, there are concerns that the goals will be too hard to achieve.
CCTV’s Ge Yunfei filed this report.
Ranping Song on climate change
For more on climate change, CCTV’s Elaine Reyes spoke with Ranping Song. He’s an expert whose worked for years on climate change in China. He is the Developing Countries Climate Action Manager for the World Resources Institute.
China has pledged to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 60 percent and to generate a fifth of its electricity from clean sources by 2030. It’s an ambitious goal that may also provide some big business opportunities for U.S. companies.
CCTV’s Mark Niu filed this report in Mountain View, California.
China eager to reduce carbon emissions and electricity use in deal with the U.S.
China has pledged to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 60 percent and to generate a fifth of its electricity from clean sources by 2030. It's an ambitious goal that may also provide some big business opportunities for U.S. companies.More details:
- China and the United States are by far and away the largest emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet, together accounting for more than 35-percent of the world’s energy consumption.
- The China-U.S. Energy Efficiency Alliance formed ten years ago to pool together financial and technical resources to help China implement large-scale efficiency programs.
Another alliance member aiming to translate its success to China is Opower – a company already halfway toward its goal of reducing 1% of the U.S.’s total energy consumption.
Opower works with utilities to provide algorithms that let customers know for example how they compare in consumption to their neighbors, or whether they’re taking advantage of the most popular energy-saving tips used by their peers.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says in the next 15 years, China will install as much clean energy capacity as the entire U.S. electricity system.
Tao Wang enlightens us on what we can expect from the China-US climate change deal
Tao Wang is a resident scholar in the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy