Togetherness key to environmental progress

At a time when the country faces new growth challenges as the pace of urbanization picks up, the question for China - as it is for the United States - is whether the next wave of growth will be smart and sustainable.

Smart growth means clean energy development and energy efficiency, it means reducing greenhouse gas emissions without reducing economic opportunity. It means understanding that clean air and water are central to the quality of life, and that no family should be asked to trade the health of its children for access to energy.

China and the US face common challenges: how to grow their economies, how to keep people productively employed, how to sustain and enhance the environmental gains that have already made, and how to overcome the opposition of vested interests that stand in the way of progress.