US-China green energy cooperation offers path to address climate crisis

China and the United States can combine their strengths in green technology to help address the global climate crisis, said officials and experts, despite the rollback of US federal clean energy policies.

China's Special Envoy for Climate Change Liu Zhenmin called for stronger international cooperation as rising temperatures and geopolitical tensions place increasing pressure on climate action.

"Against these backdrops, it is more urgent than ever to uphold multilateralism and strengthen international cooperation in addressing global climate change," Liu said in a pre-recorded video at the 18th US-China Green Energy Summit held at Stanford University over the weekend.

He cited two recent reports to warn of the worsening climate crisis. The World Meteorological Organization's State of the Global Climate 2025 report, released in March, confirmed that 2015 to 2025 was the warmest 11-year period on record. The UN Environment Programme's Limiting Overshoot report, released on Sept 2, found that exceeding the 1.5 C warming threshold had become virtually inevitable under current trajectories.

"Climate change is profoundly affecting global food security, energy security, and ecological security, as well as economic and social development of all countries," Liu said.

China and the US have played important roles in establishing the global climate governance system, he said, and China has accelerated its energy transition over the past decade while remaining committed to its carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

Liu said that recent US energy policies have emphasized oil and gas development and rolled back federal clean energy measures. But continued support for green energy from some local governments, businesses and universities "has given the world a reason for hope", he said.

One opportunity for cooperation lies in connecting technological innovation with large-scale deployment, according to Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and former US secretary of energy.

Chu said the two countries could build a partnership combining innovation from both sides with the ability to scale up technologies first in China, where doing business is cheaper, and the experience gained could then be applied around the world.

Realizing that potential would also require addressing barriers to the exchange of knowledge, said Paul Milgrom, a Stanford economics professor and winner of the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

"We've seen that there are barriers to exchanging information," Milgrom told China Daily. "Partly, they (barriers) are political because the two countries don't trust each other. I think we need to lower the temperature and find ways to share our advantages so that both countries can perform better."

Milgrom pointed to the US' more effective use of markets and China's strengths in investment, green technology innovation and implementation. China also appeared to have fewer regulatory barriers, he said, offering another area in which the countries could learn from each other.

The relationship between artificial intelligence and energy provides a further opening for collaboration, Chinese Consul General in San Francisco Zhang Jianmin told the summit.

"The worlds of energy and AI are both changing rapidly. AI needs more energy, and energy systems certainly need more intelligence," Zhang said.

He highlighted the role of sub-national collaboration, as in the case of China and California. China produced more than 600 gigawatts of solar photovoltaic modules in 2025, accounting for over 85 percent of global production. In California, clean energy sources supplied approximately 66 percent of the state's electricity mix in 2025, while battery energy storage capacity reached approximately 18.3 gigawatts by year-end, according to Zhang.

He also said China accounted for 69 percent of AI patents granted worldwide in 2025, while California was home to 33 of the world's top 50 privately held AI companies. Those capabilities provided a foundation for cooperation, he said, particularly in using AI to advance the clean energy transition and address climate challenges.

Such cooperation also begins with personal exchanges, Zhang said, recalling a conversation with Milgrom before the summit about the value of bringing students and teachers together.

"When they start talking, they will discover that they will have so much more in common than what divides them," he said.